


Regressed

by Scavenger98



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, Not Canon Compliant, Original Character(s), Time Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-15
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-04-26 10:48:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 42,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5001802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scavenger98/pseuds/Scavenger98
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When he was eight, Uzumaki Naruto met a giant fox kit named Kurama. And then things started to snowball... Straight restructuring of the Naruto universe, especially in terms of mythos and how chakra works.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Contact

It was a peaceful night in Konohagakure no Sato. The temperature was moderately warm and a slight breeze ruffled curtains in the late-summer air. The dappling of clouds in the sky was light, allowing the moon to shine like a great pitted disc of silver in the blackness of night. By all accounts, it was a superbly comfortable climate. This only made it stranger that Uzumaki Naruto was thrashing in his sleep, sweating and moaning as though afflicted by some terrible pain.

Physically, this was in fact the case. However, submerged as he was behind layers of sealing and dimensional boundaries, all that he perceived was a slight headache as he walked though a sewer that felt strangely real.

Naruto had never been in a sewer, but he thought that this must be one. The walls were covered in grime, and alternated randomly between crumbling stone brick and patched sheet metal. Water dripped around him and came all the way up to his short, eight-year-old knees. He remembered from a day about a year ago when he'd snuck into a horror movie that people said 'Hello' in situations like this. It seemed stupid, but he figured he didn't have much else he could do.

"Hello?" An echo was the only reply. The scared, scarred and survival-oriented part of him noted that it was very, very dark in here. And cold… He felt like he'd been invaded somehow, though he didn't know what that word meant and therefore couldn't put it to the feeling. Deciding that he had nothing else to do, Naruto looked around, picked a tunnel that felt right and followed it.

After a few minutes of echoes and sloshing through water, Naruto came to a large room, bigger than the one he'd appeared in and quite a bit more interesting. He noticed what looked like rats running away and shivered; he hated those things.

Bringing his full attention to bear on the most interesting feature of the room, Naruto noticed that the water was lower than before. Either that or the floor was higher. It was perfectly still around him, with not so much as a single current directing it. At the end of the room, there was a giant set of metal bars held together at their center by a paper tag with something written on it. At the back of his mind, Naruto decided he needed to ask jiji about learning how to read better. Then a pulse went out from the cage, disturbing the mirror-like surface and giving a single, very important piece of information to the small boy outside it, 'There's something in there.' He decided the tried and true response was the best one and walked toward the bars to investigate.

"Hello?" He heard rustling and grumbling, the ripples grew into a few small waves and soaked his shorts. Intimidated, but unsure where he could go except forward, Naruto walked closer to the cage and leaned his head through the bars. "Is somebody there? Do you need help?"

A loud groan greeted his probing and he saw something enormous shifting in the dark recesses of the cage. He squinted into the darkness, trying his best to see whatever it was. From what he could tell, it was orange and furry. "Hello?" A high-pitched growl (or maybe it was a whimper) echoed from the thing and Naruto saw slitted, dimly glowing eyes through the bars of the cage. Slowly, an enormous vulpine face moved into the light… And despite it's scale, it was one of the cutest things Naruto had ever seen. Somewhere at the back of his childish mind, he decided he had to give voice to this cuteness.

"FOXY!" A grin spread across his face, the creepiness and general depressing nature of his surroundings completely forgotten in the wake of the giant plush toy before him. The fox didn't have any distinct eyebrows, but somehow, you could tell it had raised one at the sheer strangeness of the whole situation, though mostly at the way he'd been addressed.

"What?" Naruto's eyes widened at the incredulously spoken word and his smile broadened.

"You can talk? That's awesome! Not even those stupid tattoo-face peoples' dogs can talk!"

For his part, the fox was completely clueless as to what to do. He had never met a human child before. He'd seen them, sure, but their parents had always been too scared of him and his siblings to let them near. At least, after old man Sage died…

His memories rushed over him like a gale-force wind. Shukaku and Gyuki (his least favorite and favorite brothers respectively) had split off first, going on alone for their own reasons. He still remembered Gyuki saying farewell, asking him to take care of the rest. If Isobu had been able to, he probably would have cried. Son Goku had gone soon after, determined to help a group of humans in some sort of dispute, and eventually, it had been down to him, Matatabi and Chomei. Then it was just the last few weeks drifting in and out of consciousness in this damp cage. It was at this point that he realized the child was still talking.

"So I mean, I'm pretty sure between the one thousand hundred dogs and the one giant platypus the platypus could-"

"Hey, kid!" The sheer volume of Kurama's voice shut him up more or less immediately. "Do you know how I got in here?"

Naruto looked up and to the left, stroking his chin as though he had a beard.

"Uhhhhh… Nope. You want to get out?"

The fox nodded exasperatedly and pointedly stared down at the contemplative child. "Have you tried opening the bars?" The Fox almost hit himself at the sheer obvious nature of the suggestion, but instead gave the enormous gate an experimental push with his paw (which practically sent Naruto into a giddy fit) and quickly realized the surprisingly warm metal wasn't about to move.

"No good. Any other suggestions?"

Naruto returned to his thinking position and pointed to a large slip of paper between the two barred doors.

"There's a random paper with a kanji on it holding the doors together."

The huge orange pile of adorableness furrowed his brow and thought for a moment. What kind of paper could stand up to his strength? The only things he'd ever had a problem crushing were his siblings and the Old Man. And now that he came to think of it, what was with this setting? He'd never seen anything like it. It looked like a cave, but it was also distinctly man-made. There was metal and stone everywhere, but it was very clearly ordered in a deliberate manner… And there was a random little boy who just happened to be there. None of it added up.

'Genjutsu.' It was the only reasonable explanation. He clasped his hands together and bring the chakra that made up his body to a standstill. The world remained as it appeared. He opened his eyes and stabbed his thigh with an extending claw. He got nothing but pain for his trouble. Blood flowed for a moment before the puncture sealed itself. Naruto watched the display, unsure of what was even going on. He grimaced slightly at the blood.

"Hey, squirt, what does the slip of paper say? And don't lie, because I'll know."

Naruto shrugged.

"I dunno. Can't read."

With narrowed eyes, the creature put out its paw. After a second, something resembling yellow fire came out and formed the kanji for 'Seal.'

"Does it look like this?" The boy nodded vigorously, keen to help this strangely friendly giant animal, or at the very least appease it.

"Yeah, why?" Hesitantly, the fox put a paw through the bars and nodded to it.

"If I help you up, can you pull it off?" Naruto thought for a moment.

"Okay. But before I do… what's your name?" The Fox actually smiled, which was a bit more intimidating than he'd probably intended.

"I'm Kurama. You?" The boy smiled back, undaunted by the situation in the face of a new friend.

"Uzumaki Naruto." And with that, he climbed onto the paw and was lifted up, completely unsuspecting of the gravity of what he was about to do.

lRl

The Sandaime Hokage walked calmly to the door of Naruto's apartment and knocked, the barest hint of a genial smile on his lips as he puffed his pipe. It had been a good day so far. No major crises or political problems and a minimal amount of paperwork. It was the closest thing to a day off he was likely to get for a long, long time. When the door opened, he began to greet the small boy inside, but was beaten to the punch.

"Hey, Jiji! Did you know the Fourth's my dad?"

Hiruzen promptly quieted the boy and led him inside, setting several privacy seals and waving his day off goodbye. 'I was so close too.'

IRI

Uchiha Sasuke had a complicated relationship with his family. He loved them, really. His only real goal in life was to impress them, and they wanted so much to be impressed. No child before him had been born with the red eyes of Sharingan. But then he awoke not a week into his sixth year, and everything was different.

Wherever Sasuke looked, he could tell that something was off. Objects and people didn't mesh with his mind's assumptions in ways that felt fundamentally flawed. Flawless stone walls held invisible marks from phantom kunai. Water from a perfectly functional pump seemed a rusty red for a few moments before being normal again. Nothing lasted, but somehow, those moments felt far too real. He told no one. They would have thought he was crazy, and who knew what might happen to him then.

Eventually, he'd learned to ignore the wrongness of the world, but ignoring something and being truly blind to it are two very different things. Some nights he would wake up screaming, the feel of blood coating his forearm still fresh in his mind. No matter how hard he tried to push the visions and feelings away, they always came back. His father muttered about it to his mother when he thought he wasn't listening. He kept training and studying, and his mother bought him a mouth guard to sleep with so he wouldn't grind his teeth into nothing. His father hoped that the academy might take the weakness out of him, though he wasn't optimistic.

On the first day he met the short blond boy with the smile. Sasuke didn't understand how, but he knew him, minus a few differences. He could predict the boy's smile, though it wasn't as forced or overblown as it should have been. He saw the boy's blows coming when they sparred, even without his Sharingan. They became friends, as easily as a person falling into their own bed after a long journey. He told Itachi, and the older boy spared him a smile and a pat on the head, but not much else.

The last week of his life began simply enough. He ate dinner with his family, hoping to sneak out later that night. Naruto had asked him to help with a prank. His father talked about the goings-on of the clan; several women had given birth in the last month, which posed a problem considering the problems they were having with some of the district's water pumps. Itachi was gone on a mission, but would supposedly be back soon enough. Sasuke wasn't really listening.

A few days later, Itachi almost got into a street-fight. Sasuke heard him argue with their parents that night, his gentle older brother practically yelling about their clan's idiocy and shortsightedness. He worried that his family was starting to hate each other. Shisui didn't turn up for Thursday dinner, but nobody said a word about it. By the end of the week, Sasuke came home to find his entire clan dead.

In the dark days after the massacre, Sasuke took time to put the pieces together; one soul-shattering realization and all the warning signs fell into place. Itachi had thrown that kunai, made that crack in the wall that Sasuke had forgotten about so long ago. Uncle Shisui's bloated eyeless body had been found miles downriver, just as Sasuke had seen in his nightmares. He could remember the horrible loss of his family, as though he were experiencing it again. He hated himself for forgetting his visions, for forgetting the pieces of the puzzle that would have shown him this terrible thing before it could come to pass. In that moment, he knew that if he could do so, he would change everything.

Sasuke's eyes opened onto a room, large and dimly lit. The walls were red and black stone with blue columns at the corners and sliding doors on each side. The floor was fine polished wood intricately carved with ever-shifting designs surrounding a stone hearth filled with black fire. It burned low and silent. Next to it was a man sitting on a wooden stool, glaring at the world as though it were dangling his heart's desire just out of his reach.

He was, quite frankly, a sad sight, with an empty sword sheath at his hip and his clothes ripped and dirty. The haunted look in his eyes was completely foreign to the boy, having not looked in the mirror the last few days, but even with all these changes, the similarities were there: the hair that stood up in that strange and singular way, the sharp angle and straight bridge of his nose, the strangely accusatory quality of his black eyes. It wasn't a stretch to figure out who this person was.

"When is this?" Sasuke gaped at the person in front of him, not quite comprehending what was going on.

"What… how?" The older him raised an eyebrow and frowned as if to ask if he were serious. He turned away and thought for a moment.

"Okay, I'll make this easy… Has Itachi done it yet?" Sasuke nodded after a moment, not trusting himself to speak. His eyes were wide, as his older counterpart looked him up and down, his expression coldly appraising. Sasuke thought momentarily how very much this man reminded him of his father.

"I… Well…" He took a moment to collect his thoughts. If he was going to ask questions, he had to be calm enough to process the answers. The first was simple.

"How?" The man stood up and walked to Sasuke, putting a hand on his shoulder that was more steadying than comforting.

"I've been trying to do this for weeks now, sending myself back I mean. Did you receive anything? Memories, feelings, anything at all?" Sasuke couldn't quite gather his thoughts, but tried his best.

"I, uh… Yeah, I think so. Nightmares, weird déjà vu, stuff like that. I've had it my whole life." The man narrowed his eyes thoughtfully for a moment before nodding.

"Nightmares… Yeah, I guess they would have been those to you. Well, first of all, I'm not actually here. This is just a dream." Sasuke blinked, momentarily losing his already fragile self-control.

"So this isn't real?" The older Uchiha narrowed his eyes in annoyance.

"The mind's just as real as anything else." The man's eyes returned to the flames and Sasuke's brow furrowed for a moment as he concentrated on figuring out how that would work.

"That's beside the point right now. I can't keep this up for long. It's hard to keep a spacetime rift open for very, even for just metaphysical things." The man seemed to mentally prepare himself before placing a hand on his young doppelganger's head.

"I don't know if this will hurt, or even if it'll work, but it has to be done. Hopefully, you'll never have to meet me again." There was a rush of pain, strangely numbing, as though he knew it was excruciating, but didn't really believe it. The world around him started to crumble and the man-that-was-him-but-not faded, a smile that looked unnatural, yet genuine on his face even as his body phased itself out of existence. "Don't screw it up like me."

"AH!" He woke up, his sheets soaked through with sweat. The world was so much clearer. Something… something was different. He could feel it. He'd had a strange dream, but now he couldn't remember it…

Eh, it probably wasn't important. For the first time since his brother's betrayal, he felt calm, not at peace, but something resembling it. He nodded to himself, a course for his future appearing more or less full cloth in his mind's eye. As far as he was concerned, the worst possible thing to do now was to stay at home moping when he could be bettering himself. And with that, he stretched, got out of bed, and got ready for school. He had a favor to ask someone.


	2. Growth

_“Talent erupts from the most unexpected places, so often in fact that I’ve sometimes considered disregarding clans altogether and only training the civilians.”_

_-Memoirs of the Niidaime Kazekage_

**Konoha Eastern Residential District**

**4 years since contact**

BZZZZZZZZZZZ. BZZZZZZZZZZZ. The loud ring of his clock brought Sasuke out of his nightmare into a bright new spring day. He shot up in bed, a yell barely contained behind his clenched teeth. His alarm kept blaring and he breathed out a few forcedly relaxed breaths. His barely-awake thoughts were simple and concise. 'Alarm? Early. Academy?' Somewhere off in the other room, Naruto yelled something incoherent in his sleep before returning to his snoring. Sasuke might have been surprised if they hadn't been living together for three years. Naruto was usually a maelstrom of energy, but once he was asleep he didn't wake up until he damn well felt like it.

Sasuke rubbed a bit of lingering grogginess from his eyes and turned to read the time on his small grey clock. 'Why in all the gods' names would I be waking up at 4:30?' Normally, he didn't get up for another hour. The academy didn't start until 7:00, so he could get out of bed, have a good breakfast, train for an hour and get to class exactly on time. 'What the hell?'

Groaning, he hit the snooze button and lay back down, resolving to get this final hour of sleep; Naruto would wake him up in an hour as usual. His whole body felt heavy, like it was slowly sinking further into his mattress. Doing his best to relax his body and mind, he began to feel the first tendrils of darkness returning…

Then it hit him like a bucket of ice water. He'd set that alarm last night. He had specifically thought that he'd have to get up an hour earlier than usual because today was special. It was the anniversary; exactly four years ago his brother had murdered their entire family. He'd almost forgotten.

Suddenly not feeling nearly as tired, he got out of bed and started getting ready for the day. If he'd been lacking enthusiasm before, it was nonexistent now; he was running on autopilot. His movements were sluggish and without passion, nothing like the regimented mannerisms his father had trained into him when he was a child.

He thought about his family a lot, probably more than was healthy. It wasn't that he hadn't made peace with their deaths, they were gone and he knew for a certainty that there wasn't anything he could do about it. No, it was the murder that he couldn't get over. For the millionth time, he wondered what reason could have possibly driven his kind, thoughtful big brother to kill so many he had loved. That question was like a dull ache at his core that never truly went away. Regardless of how close Naruto was to a brother, Sasuke still felt alone, and he didn't even know why.

And it wasn't just that. For a while after the Massacre, the villagers had been kind to him, though he knew most of it was just courtesy; none of them really understood what he was going through. But then he'd moved in with Naruto and the whispering had started.

"What's he doing with that kid?"

"What if he's like his brother?"

"Maybe they're plotting something."

It was all perfectly ridiculous, and no one in power had ever acted on the suspicions, but Sasuke could see the thought process. After, all, if Naruto could be confused for a monster inside of him, then Sasuke could be mistaken for a monster he was related to. Putting them together hadn't helped, but Sasuke refused to wallow in the clan compound. He'd have driven himself insane being there every day; the time he'd tried had made that clear enough.

Almost in a trance, he pulled on blue shinobi pants and a white high-collared shirt, strapped on his black sandals and did his usual morning routine before making a brusque walk to the door of his and Naruto's apartment. He paused, hand still on the handle, 'I forgot to eat breakfast.' With a shrug, he turned the knob and continued on his way. He'd get something later. It didn't take long for his brusque pace to take him down the stairs to the street, stepping over the creaky stair and meeting the doorman's wary eyes with a casual nod, not really cognizant of his own actions. A step out the door and a sharp left turn set him on his path. It was going to be a long walk.

IRI

'Wake up, Squirt.' Naruto's eyes blinked open at the simultaneously old and young voice reverberated through his mind. Almost robotically, he threw off his blankets and made a turn out of bed, planting his feet firmly on the floor. His hands rose high above his head and his mouth dropped open in an enormous yawn. It lasted for a good half minute before his tenant chimed in, 'Oh no, keep going, I don't think the people two floors down heard you.'

'Good morning to you too.' The semi-teenaged demon fox muttered something about snakes and annoying midgets.

Naruto blinked, setting his feet in motion and fumbling with the doorknob for a second. Sasuke's alarm wasn't going off. Letting out another, smaller yawn, he walked into the kitchen and checked the calendar. A red and white fan decorated the small square of that Monday.

'Oh.' Naruto had completely forgotten about the anniversary. 'So that's why it's so quiet.' He heard a sigh at the back of his mind and turned a look upward, as though he were trying to see his brain.

"Sleepy, Furball?"

A groan was the only response from his mental roommate. Sniggering to himself, he poured himself a bowl of cereal and drained a glass of orange juice before walking off to the bathroom and brushing his teeth. When he was done, he spat out the toothpaste, then rinsed and spat again before wiping his mouth and inspecting his face in the mirror. His eyes were a piercing blue, his cheeks sported three whisker marks each and his hair was a spiky mess that no comb could ever hope to tame. 'Yep, no change from yesterday.'

For a moment, he was contemplative. 'You think it might work this time?' There was a sound that was something between a chuckle and a groan in the back of his mind.

'Honestly? No. But go ahead and try.' He focused a bit and watched his eyes turn golden. His pupils lengthened in concentration as he squinted at the door of the bathroom cabinet. A wisp of golden flame snaked out from his body and moved toward the mirror.

About an inch from his reflection, the already unstable tendril dissipated into nothing, dashing what small hope Naruto had. He growled, but pushed the frustration aside. After all, it was no different than the last few hundred times he'd tried to use Kurama's chakra like that.

Discarding the failure, he strolled out of the bathroom and back to his room to grab clothes for the day. He pulled the first clean shirt he could find out of his laundry bag, threw on the same pants he wore just about every day, checked the clock and groaned. He must have been groggier than usual; it was already 6:30. He grabbed his bag and started a brusque walk out of the door. On the way, he grabbed his jacket and ran down the stairs, trying to remember if he'd planned any pranks for today. He was already a full block down the road to the Academy when Kurama decided to chime in.

'Hey, squirt... Hey.' Naruto twitched a bit, making sure to keep his response mental. He'd gotten more than a few weird looks for talking to himself in the past.

'What?' The young fox didn't respond. Just as Naruto was about to ask again, he spoke, smugness dripping from his words.

'You forgot your homework.'

Naruto's stomach dropped out of him and he made a sharp about face before sprinting back up the sidewalk. 'Gods fucking dammit, furball! Shitshitshitshitshitshi…!'

IRI

"Uzumaki Naruto?" It was an innocuous enough pronouncement. A given name, slightly ridiculous depending on your translation, and a family name covered in a rather bitter dose of history. Several people had said them together many times before at around this same time in the morning. The Inevitable Lord was bored when they were uttered and took interest, not because it was a moment of crossroads, or even especially important. It was not a beginning, but one of those strange, barely memorable middle-moments that nobody pays attention to. But attract his attention it did, for the name was one he knew well.

A gaping silence greeted the usual call. Iruka looked around questioningly. Everything appeared mostly as usual to him.

Sakura had her nose buried in a book (somehow keeping up a conversation with Ino and Hinata at the same time), Kiba was sitting with Shikamaru and Chouji and Shino was off in his usual corner playing some kind of game in his notebook with Ichiro. Nothing and nobody was out of the ordinary, except that no shock of bright blonde hair greeted his eyes. He glanced down at his attendance chart and then back up at the class.

The Master of Ends cared not in the slightest for the names on the paper, nor the people they were attached to, but watched nonetheless, as the source of his interest was up to his usual shenanigans.

"HEY IRUKA-SENSEI!"

The man in question whirled to find his most annoying student (and also his favorite, but that was beside the point at the moment) doing a handstand on his desk. His t-shirt and jacket had both fallen down his torso and a huge grin was plastered across his face.

"HOW ARE YA?"

Iruka's palm met his face with a loud clap and the Joyful One almost chuckled. A few scattered echoes of that mirth could be heard from the rest of the class, but most of them watched silently.

"Naruto, please take a seat. We need to start class."

The blonde boy frowned at his teacher, still on his hands.

"You know sensei, it really pays to invest in a sense of humor."

Iruka finally picked Naruto up, flipped him over and planted him feet first on the floor.

"Seat. Now."

Naruto grumbled as he went, straightening his clothes. He took a quick walk to his usual place next to Sasuke in the back.

This one was also of some special interest. His was the mark of the Moon's final gift, the concentric rings that she had once been so proud of, long since lost and mutilated by mortal existence. A momentary look between the two boys communicated a few things. Sasuke muttered something that sounded like "Nice entrance, jackass."

"Alright, everybody be quiet!" The students quickly did as they were asked; nobody was looking to be on the receiving end of a half-comprehensible lecture.

"Since Yamanaka-san is clearly here, we can start. But before we do, I have a quick announcement. As most of you will know, we only have a week left before graduation. We've covered the entire standard curriculum, but many of you still display weaknesses in certain fields. To best make use of the remaining time we have before the final exam, your class will be split into groups based on whichever core skill you have the worst grades in.

"At the end of the year, your grade for the next week will be averaged with your previous grade in the subject. We hope that this will help you all become better-rounded shinobi, and thus more likely to pass your final exam." Iruka checked briefly to see if anyone had questions before moving on.

"These groups will be overseen by a specialized chunin. Your group, room, and instructor will be up on the blackboard. I personally will be teaching traps."

Naruto's expression was quizzical as Iruka wrote down the list of people in Mizuki's taijutsu group.

"You know what I want to know? Where the hell are they gonna put you?"

Sasuke frowned thoughtfully and shrugged.

"They'll find something."

Naruto turned back to the front and watched the groups being written on the board. Quickly becoming bored, he held up his finger and channeled a bit of Kurama's chakra to its tip.

The Final Knife watched with interest, always intrigued by the effects of his own work. The usual warm feeling flooded the boy's stomach and a light glow appeared behind the digit's skin. With a bit more push, the chakra coated the fingertip, and golden fire appeared. Sasuke looked sideways at his friend and raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything; he'd seen the Fox's fire countless times before. It might be beautiful, but after a while, it looked like just that: strange fire.

"Hey Kumiko, the freaks doing it again."

Naruto quickly extinguished the fire and looked back at the board. His face met his desk with a solid thunk.

'History. Of course it would be fucking history.' A few glares were thrown his way, but altogether his complaint went unnoticed. After all, things like this weren't uncommon for the class troublemaker. Minutes passed that felt like hours and the Bearer of the Cloak watched with unwavering attention, still unsure of his purpose. He watched as the moon-child was sorted. He watched as the lone purifier in the room observed everything with trepidation. He saw every little detail and yet could not understand why this time had called him so.

He watched as the yellow boy was sneered at and as many left the room for other such spaces, speaking of unimportant things and no longer calling his attention. He watched the two boys exchange a look that held some small amount of brotherly concern and he knew why he had been called.

'It's almost sad really.' And then he was gone, waiting for his next time to watch.

IRI

"A summit of the kages was called, and it was only thanks to the future Nidaime Hokage's shrewd negotiating that trade routes were established with the Land of Snow, and their weapons trade with Iwagakure cut off…" Naruto drifted back out of whatever their chunin instructor was saying (although the woman did look strangely familiar) and thought about what they could possibly use this information for. So what if the Nidaime had managed to prevent the first inter-village war with trade agreements, saving thousands of lives in the process and cementing Konoha's dominance over the others for years to come? How was that useful to-?

Well, actually, when he thought of it like that it sounded pretty damn impressive, but all that would become meaningless once he became Hokage and blew all of his predecessors out of the water with the sheer magnitude of his awesomeness! Especially Jiji! Once he had graduated the academy, Naruto would climb the ranks and become so ridiculously strong that the old man would have no choice but to hand over the Epic Hat of Epicness! The people would cry out in fear and adoration and the women would-!

Naruto cut that thought short just in time for the visiting instructor to turn an annoyed glare on him.

"I'm sorry, Uzumaki-san, is something funny?"

Naruto did his best to turn his smiling face blank and quickly shook his head no.

"It's just that you were chuckling a bit maniacally and I'm all too painfully aware of your penchant for misbehavior." Her glare burned.

'Oh, right, she's library staff. Last year's masterstroke with the switched book covers and itching powder… This is awkward.' Naruto nodded soundlessly, wide-eyed, tight-lipped and generally scared shitless, as the young woman turned back around to face the board, returning to her lecture on early village history. The blonde Uzumaki almost let out a sigh of relief; he could have sworn there was some killing intent in that glare.

"Now, as I was saying, the Nidaime used his shrewd speaking skills and greater military power to leverage the Land of Snow out of their treaty with Iwagakure, establishing Konoha's economic dominance for the next eight years until Sunagakure and Iwagakure joined forces in order to wage war on equal footing with Konoha. Over the course of the war, many local shinobi and civilian children were conscripted to bolster the villages' own forces. Some of these ninja would go on to start their own Hidden Villages, most famously Amegakure, Kusagakure…" Naruto's eyes widened as the lecture went on and more people were drawn into what would become the First Shinobi World War.

'Six paths, it's like the countries are dominoes. I haven't even heard of half of these villages.'

Kurama scoffed in the back of his mind.

'Your people won. Why do you care?'

'I don't know. All that killing over some stupid treaty just seems wrong...'

After about ten minutes of constant bloodshed and back and forth terribleness, Naruto came to the conclusion that political maneuvering must be the single biggest cause of death in existence.

'When I'm Hokage, I'm not going to let people get away with that bullshit.'

A few desks over, Chouji's hand rose tentatively.

"Um, miss, didn't the Niidaime's treaty in effect cause the later war by causing trouble for Iwa?"

Next to him, Kiba yawned and scratched his leg. Before he had even finished the sound, a kunai was lodged between his fingers on the desk. He jumped back with a yelp, which didn't work incredibly well on a stationary bench. The librarian instructor ignored his vicious glare completely and turned to answer Chouji's question.

"Yes, Akimichi-san, however, we must remember that no force of shinobi had ever organized on this macro level before. Senju-sama did not think that the other villages would consolidate their forces so willingly in the face of a superior foe." She actually smiled for a second as she scanned the rest of the class for questions.

'Who the hell is she?'

IRI

Naruto went to lunch with one thing on his mind and one thing only.

'Starving. Food. Now.' His stomach grumbled and he frowned, hand hovering over the abused organ. 'You need Ichiraku's.'

Course decided, he picked up his backpack and filed slowly out of the classroom with his fellow students. 'Why does history have to be so depressing? Bad enough I forgot my lunch, and then she had to kill that last little bit of a good mood… Wait, why didn't you tell me I forgot my ramen?' There was the strange feeling that accompanied Kurama rolling his eyes.

'Don't blame me for your own forgetfulness squirt. I can't help you with everything; you'd never get anything done yourself.'

'Eh, well, I guess – HEY! Don't try to make this into a lesson! You're just being lazy.'

The sun shone in Naruto's eyes as he and the other kids exited the Academy building, narrowing their eyes against the sudden glare of natural light. He scanned around the stretch of road in front of the building, searching. If Sasuke were around, he'd have been easy to spot; the hair was kind of hard to miss. But alas, no gravity-defying black spikes greeted his eyes. 'Where'd he go?'

Sighing, he started off toward his favorite place in existence. The glares weren't as sharp on his way there; people who saw him on a regular basis were usually too used to him to put real effot in.

"Hey! Naruto!"

Chouji's voice stopped Naruto's angsting as quickly as it had started. The large boy was smiling brightly, waving to the blonde jinchuriki as Shikamaru stood off to his right being his usual bored, daydreaming self.

"Where are you headed?"

Naruto managed a decently genuine smile and waved back.

"Well, I forgot my lunch at home, so I was about to head to Ichiraku's. Wanna come along?"

Chouji's eyes lit up at the mention of good food. Shikamaru turned a strange look on his friend, but shrugged and nodded.

"Whatever."

They walked off together down the road, talking about the morning and their weird new teachers as if they weren't all on the cusp of the greatest turning point in their young lives.

IRI

'You are an Uchiha of the main family. This should be easy.'

Sasuke gritted his teeth against the memory of his father's voice and sprinted at his target again, imagining the tree were his instructor's stupid, overenthusiastic face.

Sasuke had always imagined medic-nins to be professionals, focused and disciplined. His teacher had not fit that bill. He'd worn the standard outfit for his line of work with one large difference: the whole thing was dyed bright red and yellow. He'd shunshined into the chakra-control classroom accompanied by a huge similarly colored banner proclaiming that he was the most accomplished surgeon in Konohagakure, and a sweeping, twenty-minute speech that boiled down to "I am awesome, you all suck, prepare for death by training!"

Sasuke had of course stayed completely impassive through the whole display, which in retrospect might have been the worst possible thing to do. He'd been singled out almost immediately and, following an uncharacteristically snide comment, had been told to go outside and climb a tree without his hands. The act was really the thing that irked him most; he hated losing control of himself, even to that small degree.

Regardless, he'd proceeded to spend more than half an hour in the sparring ground just to happen upon what he was supposed to be doing, and even with the whole morning to work, he'd barely made it to the point where he could take a step up the bark without it exploding under his sandals. In the last half an hour, he'd managed to get about four feet up the tree. He could already hear the other students leaving the building for lunch. He'd needed almost five hours to get to where he was now. 'Pitiful.'

"Hey, Uchiha!"

Sasuke almost lost his footing, just managing to push off of the tree and flip into a three-limbed landing. He turned a glare on the girl, making his annoyance as visible as possible.

"What do you want, Sakura?"

The girl's bright pink hair was cut to about shoulder-length and pulled back from her face with the usual red ribbon, revealing eyes that could glare just as hard as Sasuke's could. Her clothes were distinctly civilian despite her kunoichi aspirations: just shorts and a t-shirt.

"What was that you were just doing?"

Sasuke's frown deepened and he turned back around.

"Tree-climbing. What's it to you?"

Sakura rolled her eyes and snorted derisively.

"Well yeah, I can see that. I meant how are you doing it without your hands?"

For a moment, Sasuke contemplated how best to make her leave. A muttered "You figure it out," would have probably done the job. But as he continued to think, he realized that even though he'd figured out how to stick to the tree by focusing chakra to his feet, he had no idea if there was some secret nuance to the exercise. Sakura was notorious for her book-smarts; she might be able to help. The question was: would that be worth the possible ridicule? After a few tense, awkward seconds, his logic won out over his pride.

"Well, I figured out that I need to focus chakra to my feet, but the instructor didn't give me any directions except 'climb the tree without your hands…'"

He let the unspoken question hang and waited for the sarcasm to start. But when he looked at her face, she only seemed thoughtful, staring at the tree contemplatively.

"Well generally, the feet are the hardest place to circulate extra chakra to because it naturally rises. I can see why the control instructor would assign something like this…"

For a moment, her forehead creased and Sasuke could practically see the gears turning in her head.

"Have you tried dialing back the amount you use, maybe trying to spread it more evenly across the soles of your feet?"

Sasuke's frown deepened. He supposed that made sense. Taking greater care to control the chakra in his feet instead of just shoving it down, Sasuke found that he could go a full two feet farther than before, and that he relied on his momentum a lot less to make it happen. Once again sticking the landing, he turned to begrudgingly thank the pink-haired girl, but found she wasn't where she'd been previously. He frowned and did a quick pivot in the opposite direction only to be confronted with something positively infuriating.

The godsdamned civie was walking slowly but surely up the side of the next big tree over. Finally, she reached the first large branch and went upside down. She turned to Sasuke and he saw that her lips were pulled back in the smuggest grin he'd seen on someone that wasn't Naruto.

"Come on, the theory isn't even that complex; chakra's attractive properties are unsafe in higher concentrations, it literally rips things apart trying to pull them together. What, did you sleep through first year?"

Sasuke almost growled, almost being the operative word. He wouldn't give her the satisfaction of seeing just how angry he was. Instead his two-pronged Sharingan eyes flared into blood-red life. He saw her chakra moving in a constant stream through her body toward her feet, then back out again. He noticed with some surprise that her reserves were tiny, even for an academy student. She was still above the average civilian level, but even compared to Ino - who wasn't exactly a wellspring - Sakura was like a glass of water next to a large bucket. He didn't even want to think about Naruto.

A quick blink later, his eyes returned to normal and he placed the images of her moving chakra at the forefront of his mind. If he focused hard enough, he might be able to copy the technique from her. However, instead of thanking her, he simply turned back to his own tree and walked calmly up until he couldn't hold the balance in his feet again and jumped back as the bark splintered. With some satisfaction, he saw that his footprint was several feet higher than before.

Sakura kept hanging there for a while before seemingly deciding that she had better things to do than watch Sasuke give her the cold shoulder. With a muttered "Goodbye." She ran down the tree and off, probably looking for Ino. Sasuke frowned as he continued to run up the tree, advancing then falling, always pushing forward.


	3. Graduation

_“Clash, clash, and clash again, until the very heavens quake. In time this shall pass, and memory of you and your enemy will be naught but dust slipping through the fingers of dead men.”_

_\- The True Way Chapter 2: On Struggle and Conflict_

 

            Naruto’s sun-dappled face was frowning. It was lunchtime on Friday of the final week of his last year in the Academy and he’d settled against the side of the school building to eat pre-prepared ramen from a thermos. On Monday, his class would take the preliminary graduation exams, on Tuesday the practical and then, hopefully, they’d become genin. Sasuke was nearby, running laps up and down a tree, as he’d been doing all of lunch for the past few days. Naruto had tried the technique a few days earlier, but still hadn’t quite gotten the hang of it.

            It was a beautiful spring day, just cloudy enough for comfort with a nice breeze. Even so, the crash course of the previous week on the larger points of village history had left Naruto in a generally bad mood. Some of it _was_ diverting, but for the most part it was wars, genocides, wars involving genocides, and the occasional great feat of bravery by some hero of the village, if only to preserve some romanticism. While stories about his father were nice, he’d have preferred for them to one: come from the man himself, and two: not involve him massacring entire armies, no matter how justified the reason.

Naruto had been told many times over that the life of a ninja was not to be taken lightly, but the last week had brought that truth back to the forefront and smashed it into his mind with a sledgehammer.

Countless people over the course of the village’s history had died in horrible ways: explosions, drowning, poisons, bludgeoning and good old fashioned sharp edges were just a few ways that they’d been slaughtered both on and off the battlefield. Half the wars those people had been fighting in had been for the sake of a land-grab or the _possibility_ of a threat. As you might expect, the contemplation of those facts hadn’t allowed Naruto much sleep.

With a loud slurp, Naruto finished his ramen and screwed the top of the thermos back on, sighing. He normally wasn’t one to dwell on life’s bad side. It was one of the reasons he was so hyperactive; down the road of unoccupied time laid introspection and thoughts that he really didn’t want to face.

Sasuke stumbled slightly as he made the nearly ninety-degree adjustment from tree to ground, still at a run, and came to a stop in front of his friend, panting. Naruto barked out a laugh.

“You should probably go change before lunch ends. I can smell you all the way over here.” Sasuke’s satisfied smirk vanished and he lifted his arm. He grimaced and nodded.

“Right.” With a frown, he walked off, slinging on his backpack. Naruto quickly followed suit, putting his lunch back in his own bag and walking around the side of the building toward the main entrance.

With a few minutes left before lunch ended, some of the students had already made their way back to their classrooms. Naruto’s instructor, who had earned herself the moniker “psycho librarian teacher,” was sitting quietly behind her desk, reading a book and every now and then glancing up at the room. He was careful to avoid her wandering gaze.

Taking a seat in an empty row next to the leftmost wall, Naruto began drumming his fingers on the desk. He was impatient for this lesson to start, mostly so that it could be over already.

 _‘She’ll probably be talking about the attack.’_ Not a topic he was looking forward to, but he’d known what he was in for when he was put into the history group. Nothing for it now but to wait for the class to start.

 

**IRI**

 

            “Alright kids, this is your last chance! Remember, anyone who manages to finish this exercise by the end of the day gets a free dinner at Yakiniku Q on Saturday!” Sasuke had decided that his instructor reminded him of those idiot game-show hosts on the radio. His whole delivery was over the top and forced, as though he were acting regardless of what he said. He thought it made the man sound pretentious, but as Naruto had pointed out many a time, his hair looked like a duck, so who was he to criticize people’s life choices?

            The other students had been attempting to reach kunai stuck at the top of each trunk around the small clearing for several days now. Both as further incentive to master the exercise, and as a minimal safety precaution, the instructor (whose name Sasuke had made a point of not remembering) had used a suiton ninjutsu to turn the clearing into a muddy pit. Several girls and boys who had complained had then received taller trees.

            Sasuke, having gained a functional mastery of the exercise around the same time his classmates had started with it, had been allowed to train as he pleased. He was currently performing a basic sharingan exercise: look off into the forest and see how many details you can notice and maintain in your mind at once.

Everything from the direction of the wind, to the angle of the tree limbs to the animals in the area down to the smallest insect was a potential target. His father had explained it in relation to the Hyuga. While their Byakugan gave them total awareness and they were then forced to refine their attention to detail, the Sharingan worked the other way around.

_‘Any awakened Uchiha can see every facet of one object, but a master of our clan’s doujutsu can understand every aspect of an entire battlefield in a single glance. Precise focus is infinitely easier than paying general attention.’_

            Sasuke had used the exercise to great effect when acquiring his second tomoe, albeit with shuriken in the mix, but so far all effort toward the third had been wasted. In all likelihood, it would take a truly challenging situation to achieve the final level.

            With a frown, Sasuke broke off his gazing and turned to watch the other kids. They were mostly civilians, but there was a girl from the Hagoromo clan as well. Most were making slow and steady progress, with the forerunners nearing their targets. Several would probably be getting that dinner. He shook his head and ran down his tree, specifically chosen a safe distance away from the mud-pit. He took a seat at the base of the trunk and leaned up against it, hoping to get a nap in after the hard training he’d done at lunch.

            Unfortunately for him, the sound of footsteps broke him out of his barely-begun rest. The man stood above him in all his opposite-colored glory, a frown set into his face.

“Don’t think you can get away with not doing anything, Uchiha. If this is already easy for you, it shouldn’t take you too long to figure out how to walk on the mud without sinking.”

            Sasuke’s mouth opened in preparation for a retort, but instead he elected to shut it and just do as he was told. It would be an idiotic exercise in futility not to.

 

**IRI**

 

            “One of the latest important events in this village’s history is the Kyubi attack of 12 years ago. Can anyone tell me the context of the event?” A civilian boy with glasses and an unruly mop of brown hair raised his hand, expression pensive.

“The Third Shinobi World War had only ended three years previously and the Yondaime had been Hokage for two.” The instructor smiled and nodded. “Yes, Ichiro, it’s good to know you’ve been paying attention.” Naruto’s expression, which had been distracted for the last few hours, suddenly went cold. In the back of his mind, he felt the usual strangeness of Kurama stirring, paying attention instead of sleeping like he usually did.

            “And… Ah, Uzumaki-san, on what day of the year did the attack occur?” Naruto’s eyes widened and he had to take a second to become marginally calm before he answered.

“The ah… the tenth of October.” His back had gone rigid and he’d made direct eye contact with the woman; she was fixed on him, though her expression was as calm as ever. Without even really meaning to, he kept on talking. “It was out of nowhere, unprovoked. Which makes you wonder if he was really in control of-” A kunai impacted with the desk next to Naruto’s head and he jerked bodily to the side. Her impassive gaze had turned into a glare.

“I asked for a date, Mr. Uzumaki, not apologist conjecture.”

            Naruto gulped and slowly returned to his normal sitting position. He could hear Kurama growling and some mutters from the other students. He sat back up and did his best to slow his heartbeat, calm his breathing. He had to control himself.

            The woman turned back around and continued the lesson; occasionally sending looks Naruto’s way, but never again calling on him. It was strange how close he’d come to panicking. He’d known this would probably happen before the week was over. Still, being confronted with the reality of his roommate’s past was always a nasty experience for the both of them. No matter how nice he was now, Kurama had been a force of mass destruction multiple times before, and nobody was going to let either of them forget it.

            “Following the attack, the Sandaime retook the position of Hokage and ever since, we’ve commemorated October tenth with a festival. Since then, nobody of sufficient strength and position has appeared to take up the mantle.” Those words were what finally brought Naruto out of his semi-depressed stupor. He and Kurama had figured out how they would make up for the attack a long time ago. All that they needed to do was make it happen.

 

**IRI**

            Sunday was a dreary, cloudy day, marked by intermittent showers and markedly less bustle than was average for a large city like Konoha. Saturday on the other hand, had been sunny and busy. Naruto and Sasuke had spent the day training by the lake near the old Uchiha district in preparation for the graduation exam. Naruto was creeping closer to mastering the tree-climbing exercise, with a lot of help from both of his roommates of course. Sasuke had spent the whole time in the shallows of the lake, working on what was apparently the next level of the technique. It was slow going, and eventually, they’d decided to go home.

            Sunday had been spent studying for the written exam. Naruto had put his week of classes to good use, giving Sasuke basic rundowns of some of the more obscure events and even correcting some aspects of the outdated textbook they’d had to settle for at the beginning of the year. Sasuke would have paid for a better one, but he wasn’t allowed access to his clan’s fortune, at least until he made chunin or came of age. Upside: he had less than four years to wait at the most. Downside: they were dependent on their stipends for just about everything.

            On top of the historical side of things, there was a fair amount of chakra theory, mathematics and general field-knowledge that they were supposed to have memorized. The dining room table had been covered in scrolls and textbooks. Sasuke didn’t think he’d ever seen Naruto study so hard in his whole school career. But at the same time that single-mindedness had been unsettling. He’d seemed preoccupied since their last day, far more than usual.

            With an aggravated sigh, Sasuke turned over in his bed, trying to empty his mind. He’d been following variations on this train of thought the whole damn day. _‘Are we prepared enough? What’s on Naruto’s mind?’_ It was the same cycle feeding back into itself down a million different paths.

            It was another hour before he managed to fall asleep and even then, it was far from restful. The nightmare this time was of nightmarish eyes; green like jade, narrowed, bruised, and bloodshot. They were unsettlingly familiar. When his alarm finally went off, he was all too eager to greet it.

           

**IRI**

 

            Naruto’s face was, for once, buried in a book. He’d taken every moment leading up to this test to study and train, and the small time he had before it finally started was no exception. He’d spent an especially long time on chakra theory; it had never been his strong suit. Neither was math. Or code breaking. Or geography. _‘Well, none of the academic stuff is my strong suit, but at least I’m trying.’_

The slight creak of the door opening pulled him out of his thoughts. Umino Iruka’s smiling countenance greeted the class, a small clipboard under his arm. Their assistant instructor Mizuki followed behind, markedly more subdued.

“Good morning students! I hope you’re ready!” There was an apprehensive groan of assent from the assembled students. A few among the group smiled to themselves or frowned. Naruto and Sasuke fell into the second and final camps respectively, not because of different mindsets, but simply because they expressed determination differently. They would pass this test. Mizuki walked forward with a pile of papers as he explained the test.

“As you’ve been told, this test consists of four portions. One is mathematics and code breaking. Two is chakra theory. Three is history and geography. Four is practical application. The last section is worth as much as the first three combined, so if you fail that, you fail the whole test.” There were a few complaints voiced, but they quickly died down. Shinobi had to be able to adapt to new problems, follow orders, and complaining helped none of that. That had been drilled into them more times than they could count.

“Please put away all study materials now. You can leave with them once you’ve finished.” Sasuke frowned to himself as the students put away their books and scrolls. Mizuki began passing out tests, with Iruka not far behind, carrying pencils. They hadn’t bothered taking attendance.

Naruto’s expression scrunched as he thought hard on what he’d just heard. _‘I guess that’s kind of a test in the first place. Follow orders to the letter or fail, right?’_

The first few questions were easy, but basic algebra soon gave way to trigonometry and the like. Naruto had hated studying for this portion, but apparently it had paid off; he’d only gotten stuck twice by the time he got through the math and come to the codes. He breezed through those three questions mostly because he didn’t know if he was doing them right, and decided it was best not to care. He wiped his sweaty palms on his pants and pushed on.

The rest of the written test was infinitely easier for him; chakra theory was interesting, if confusing, and he’d spent an entire week being drilled on history, making the third section the easiest by far. The fourth was a short series of questions, each using at least two of the previous three sections. One in particular had to do with booby-trapping a major bridge without causing it extensive damage. _‘Honestly, when the hell would we need to know that?’_

            Sasuke managed to finish about ten minutes before Naruto, but the dark-haired boy waited around anyway. It wasn’t as though they had anything especially pressing on the itinerary.

When Naruto finally made the last flourishing mark on his page, it was with a tentatively proud grin on his face. His hand shot into the air and Iruka came up to him, smiling as he picked up the paper and pencil. A sly wink passed from him to his favorite student before he turned and marched back down the steps to the teachers’ desk, a slight upward curve still present on his lips.

 

**IRI**

 

            “Attention!” Mizuki stood in the middle of the mid-sized gymnasium in back of the academy. His fingers were pressed to his throat and his voice carried over the ten rows of filled stands. Silence fell upon the assembled students and prospective jounin-sensei like an anticipatory blanket.

 _‘Must be some sort of amplifying jutsu. Could be useful.’_ Sasuke activated his Sharingan and quickly memorized the chakra flow of the jutsu. It was fairly basic, easy to reproduce with maybe a few hours’ practice later on.

            “For the practical portion of the exam, those who have passed the written portion and the latest ninjutsu test will be called down to the gym floor to participate in two-on-two team spars. Fights will continue until both members of a team have conceded, taken five direct hits to the torso and/or head, or are knocked out. Chakra use is allowed, but ninjutsu and genjutsu are not.” There were excited murmurs and a few groans from the prospective genin, but the assembled chunin and jounin remained silent. The Sandaime sat above them all on a raised chair in the top row, eyes scanning his possible future subordinates.

            “Team One will be Haruno Sakura and Akimichi Chouji. Team Two will be Uzumaki Naruto and Sasaki Ichiro.” Naruto quickly took off down the steps to the gym floor, a grin on his face. His partner, a relatively average-built glasses-wearing civilian in shorts and a rumpled long-sleeved shirt walked more cautiously, as did Chouji, who looked extremely nervous, but determined nonetheless. Sakura’s pace was fast, but controlled. Her face was impassive and her hands were clenched into fists. Each of them took positions a few feet to either side of the mid-line. Naruto, Sakura and Ichiro had taken the standard academy ready position, but Chouji was in a wide, low-set stance that Sasuke hadn’t seen before.

 _‘Must be a clan style. I guess his parents gave him the okay to use it in public.’_ There was a moment of tense silence then Mizuki brought his hand down. “Go!”

            Sakura made an immediate beeline for Ichiro, unleashing a flurry of blows that quickly put him on the defensive. Her technique was neat and efficient if a bit stiff, and from the way her opponent kept being pushed back, her small frame belied her actual strength. The boy was putting up a decent fight, but was clearly outmatched.

            Chouji and Naruto meanwhile, were circling each other warily. They’d fought before during spars and both knew that they were up against a challenging opponent. After a few more moments, it was Naruto who initiated the fight.

            His opening attack was a running punch at Chouji’s face. The boy blocked it neatly, deflecting the attack to the side and attempting to end the match quickly with a blow to the head. Naruto jumped back with remarkable speed and aimed a kick at his opponent’s legs, hoping to unbalance him. The larger boy neatly sidestepped the blow and intercepted the next: a chakra-reinforced punch that steamrolled squarely into the middle of his x-block. Before he even had time to recover, Naruto’s knee had collided with his stomach. He stumbled back and Naruto shot into him, knocking the young clan heir to the ground and pulling back his fist for another blow. He was still grinning. “Concede.”

            Chouji seemed undecided, and Naruto’s fist tensed in preparation for a quick decent, but before he could act Sakura came out of nowhere. Her foot collided squarely with Naruto’s side and he fell sideways, clutching at the point of impact. He managed to scramble to his feet, but the pink-haired kunoichi was already on him. Chouji had recovered his breath and his footing, but had apparently elected to step back and let the two faster fighters duke it out for the moment.

            For once, Naruto was on the defensive, blocking and ducking around blow after blow. Finally, he saw an opening; she’d overextended in an attempt to break his guard. Shunting the force of her punch to his side, he stepped to her right and slammed his fist squarely into her ribs. She grunted in pain and stumbled away from him.

            This time, Naruto saw the blow coming before it hit. The heel of Chouji’s open palm collided with his head just in time for his eyes to widen, and he was sent flying. The boy had put all of his considerable weight behind the blow. It was a small miracle that Naruto was simply left reeling and not knocked out cold.

            He crawled back to his feet, eyes narrowed. His grin had vanished and he’d once again adopted the academy guard stance. He beckoned his opponents, expression grim. “Come on. Let’s do this.”

            As before, Sakura rushed him first, fists and feet colliding with his already shaken guard. But even so, his stamina was significantly better than hers. He could afford to go all out for hours, she was already breathing hard. Once again, Chouji came in to deliver a powerful finishing blow, but Naruto had confronted the problem before and this time he knew how to avoid it. Despite his strength, Chouji was slow compared to many in the class. As his blow was sidestepped he was left off balance and Naruto landed four quick blows to his torso, doubling him over and knocking him out of the match. Now it was just him and Sakura, who had moved away and was in the same stance Naruto had adopted just a few short moments previously.

            Naruto didn’t waste time. Thanks to his parentage and the fox sealed in him, he was still fighting at full strength, but he had the beginnings of a headache and it was getting harder to control his breathing. He rushed Sakura, attempting to simply bulldoze her guard. But instead of taking the hit or trying to avoid it, she caught his forearm and allowed his own momentum to carry his body into her fist.

It was a beautiful movement, perfectly timed, fluid and fast. He never even saw it coming. In the space of a moment, his breath was gone and he was on the ground, weighed down by a pink-haired girl whose eyes held the manic glint of victory. A shrill whistle rang out and Sakura climbed off of Naruto, walking off into the stands and cradling the developing bruise on her side as several jounin started taking notes and flipping through files. He was still grinning as he walked back into the stands; hand over his stomach to hide a slight golden glow.

 

**IRI**

 

            For the most part, Sasuke wasn’t very surprised by the fights that followed. Kiba trounced two big civilian boys almost without any help from his likewise originating teammate. Hinata fought a slightly more interesting battle with the Aburame heir and a girl named Kumiko who managed to get in several hits on the Hyuga girl before going down. Ino of course proved that she was worthy of being rookie of the year. Other than Sakura, it was mostly a strong showing for the clan students with the civies as glorified punching bags.

            When Sasuke’s name was called, it was a blessing. He had been getting bored. His walk to the stage was calm and collected. Shikamaru walked down in a similar fashion, though his expression was more bored than confident. Their partners seemed apprehensive. Clearly they remembered what had happened to their fellows. Sasuke noticed offhandedly that they were both wearing red t-shirts. _‘Weird.’_

            Shikamaru stood without a particular stance, stretching his neck and muttering something uncomplimentary about the whole exercise under his breath. Sasuke adopted a standard academy stance; Boujuken would be wasted without the Sharingan.

            Once again, Mizuki brought his hand down and Sasuke rushed Shikamaru, before switching direction on a dime and heading for the Nara heir’s teammate. The boy’s guard was solid, but Sasuke was quick and agile. He slid seamlessly into a sweeping kick that almost took out the boy’s legs and succeeded in severely unbalancing him. The young Uchiha turned his rising into an uppercut that was barely blocked and still put his opponent on his back.

            All the same, the boy had gone through the Academy; he managed to turn his impact with the gym floor into a rolling recovery and was on his feet before Sasuke could continue his assault. His dark green eyes glared at the last Uchiha through brown bangs and he made a probing kick at Sasuke’s knee.

Sasuke managed to avoid it by stepping back and retaliated with a jab at his opponent’s face, which was deflected to the side and returned with a heavier blow. Sasuke sidestepped the attack and landed another heavy punch to the boy’s guard, which moved just fast enough to protect his stomach. A knee followed up the punch and the boy was forced backward again, clutching the point of impact and barely avoiding a flurry of punches and kicks from Sasuke.

When he thought about it later, Sasuke would admit with some chagrin that it was his own fault. Getting tired of attacking an opponent just fast enough to deflect and dodge his blows, he shot out a particularly vicious straight kick and ended up overextending at the boy dodged. He managed to block the retaliatory blow, but it was stronger than he’d expected. His own arms bulldozed into his face, and took him off of his feet. It was only thanks to the miracle of chakra reinforcement that he recovered quickly enough to deflect the follow-up and move inside his opponent’s guard. Sasuke landed four quick hits to his torso and one prospective genin was out of the match.

Immediately switching focus, he saw that Shikamaru was managing to dance around his opponent’s blows with relative ease, which was quickly sending said thirteen-year-old into something of a rage. As Sasuke prepared to intervene on his teammate’s behalf, the boy was forced to stop for air, which seemingly had been exactly what the Nara boy was waiting for. Two sharp punches to the head and gut later, the boy was down and a sharp kick to the top of his head knocked him out. It was a surprisingly quick movement for someone who always seemed to be doing nothing.

But even as Sasuke rushed in to capitalize on his distraction, Shikamaru’s hand rose above his head and Mizuki made eye contact. “Would you like to concede?” Shikamaru frowned, and for a second he seemed to be weighing his options. Finally, he nodded, not even bothering to say the words. Sasuke stopped short, slightly annoyed. _‘Well… That was anticlimactic.’_

 


	4. Unification

_“My philosophy is this: People will always find a reason to fight. So, the best way to keep them from doing so is to make the odds insurmountable and be very, very sure everyone knows it.”_

_\- Memoirs of Senju Hashirama, on the founding of Konohagakure_

 

Sarutobi Hiruzen was a patient man. He’d seen over three quarters of a century pass by and in the process learned to bide his time and let things come to him. But that only made it stranger that Hatake Kakashi was so adept at burning through his usually long-lived fuse. Granted, the long, hard day of barely-conquered paperwork, and his earlier meeting with a group that called themselves the Coalition of Konohagakure no Sato Merchants, or CKM for short as they had insisted on reminding him several times, hadn’t helped. But even without that, Kakashi’s antics never ceased to push him past his limit.

            “Badger.” An ANBU appeared in a flawless shunshin next to his desk and the prospective jounin-sensei stopped talking for a moment before turning back to their conversations. “How late is he this time?”

The elite operative’s expression was unknowable behind her porcelain mask, but the anger wafting off of her superior was almost palpable enough to unsettle her. “About an hour, Hokage-sama.”

The elderly Sarutobi took his pipe out of his mouth and blew smoke from his nostrils. “That would leave us with about another two hours I believe?”

She nodded. “That would fit his latest patterns, sir.”

“I want you and your team to find him, and tell him that if he is not in front of me within fifteen minutes, I swear to all the gods, I will confiscate his gear and throw him naked into the women’s side of the nearest shinobi hot-spring.” The operative nodded hurriedly before disappearing again. About ten minutes of hushed conversation between the assembled jounin passed as the Sandaime smoked his pipe and contemplated how he could punish his subordinate for this. Perhaps he could have some ANBU steal his book collection during his first day of training…

            _‘No,’_ he thought, fingering the handle of the drawer where he kept his own copies of Icha Icha and smiling a bit. _‘That would just be cruel.’_

            A minute later, Kakashi appeared through the window, looking as though he’d been kicked out of his bed. He was without any sort of clothes beyond a black shirt, blue dog-print boxers and his trademark, tilted headband and mask, not even shoes.

“Hokage-sama, have you ever considered transferring Crocodile to the interrogation squad? She’s quite- ”

“Persuasive, yes. Please arrive on time to functions of this importance in future, Hatake-san.” Kakashi shrugged, wiping his feet on the toad-emblazoned welcome mat and moving to join his fellow jounin.

            “Alright, now that everyone is here,” he glared pointedly at Kakashi, “we can get started.” He pulled out a large scroll from behind his desk, then unrolled it and unsealed a neat pyramid of smaller scrolls.

“These contain all the data we possess on each graduating student as decided yesterday at the practical exam. We have twelve this year, so it shouldn’t be very problematic to make our final groupings.” This day had of course been heavily prepared for. But, as the age-old adage went, no plan survives contact with the enemy. Several groups had only partially graduated, and though that left several teams relatively intact, it still presented a problem to be dealt with. This night was something of an informal presentation ceremony crossed with a final planning meeting.

            Hiruzen wordlessly picked up the first scroll. His expression brightened slightly as he saw who it was and he picked up another. “Ah, Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke. I believe these are yours, Kakashi.” The jounin in question walked forward and took the scrolls reluctantly.

“Hokage-sama, it’s my understanding that Minoru-san did not pass.” Hiruzen nodded and turned back to the pile of scrolls.

“Indeed. There are four graduates not currently grouped; you may choose which one you think would most effectively balance your team after we have finished.” With a resigned sigh, Kakashi took the scrolls from his Hokage before taking a step back, joining the line of jounin surrounding the Hokage’s desk.

“Next is Hyuga Hinata. She is apparently adequate with her clan’s taijutsu, but lacks the confidence to use it sufficiently. Is there anyone who thinks they would be especially well-equipped to train her?” Once again, there was a moment of quiet. They had all heard the stories about the Hyuga heir and to be honest, most jounin only came to this particular ceremony as a gesture. There weren’t many among the group of hardened killers who wanted to teach kids to follow in their footsteps, or even interact with children at all. A problem student was even worse than the norm.

            “Well, if none of you are gonna take her, I’ll just fucking do it.” Anko walked up and took the scroll out of the Sandaime’s hand.

For a moment, Hiruzen’s surprise was visible, if barely. The interrogation officer had never expressed any interest in teaching; in fact the opposite was true. For a moment, he contemplated the implications of someone trained by Anko being even tangentially in line to lead the Hyuga, but in the end decided that he was already frustrated and screw the long shot political consequences; the day had been too damn long to end by arguing with Anko over a problem that would probably never manifest at all.

“You will meet with Asuma and Hatake-san after the meeting to divvy up the remaining four Genin.” She nodded, and like her superior stepped neatly back into line. As much as he wanted to trust her, Hiruzen thought that he’d have to assign some ANBU to watch her for a few months.

           “Our next student is Yamanaka Ino. She was declared Rookie of the Year yesterday. Apparently, she is a prodigy in her clan’s hiden ninjutsu and exceeds expectations in all other areas. Her psychological report suggests the usual arrogance of graduates in her situation, but nothing too damaging or hard to fix.” Hiruzen took a moment to think. “It is assumed that she should be paired with the Nara and Akimichi members of her graduating class, seeing as the Nara is last among the graduates and the Akimichi rounds out the same team their fathers were on. Yuhi-san, I believe these scrolls are yours.”

            Kurenai calmly walked forward to collect her scrolls, something akin to satisfaction radiating from her. At first he’d been skeptical about her desire to lead the second-generation trio, but she’d made a compelling argument. She’d managed to get herself a low-risk team of civilian-borns as a tokubetsu-jounin and within two years had turned them into a well-oiled machine. He recalled they’d all made chunin in the last exam. She’d further expressed the opinion that the Yamanaka’s pride over her status as Rookie of the Year was dangerous if not handled correctly. Having been the top student of her own year, she felt that of all those eligible, she was uniquely well suited to the job.

            “And of course, Inuzuka Kiba and Aburame Shino. Asuma, these are yours.” The newly appointed sensei walked forward and took his scrolls from the Hokage with a deferential nod, as well as the four extras. Kurenai stayed back along with Anko, Kakashi and Asuma while the rest of the jounin bowed in unison, and left the room. The four new teachers followed suit, moving off into the village to hammer out the final details of their new teams.

Sitting back and taking another puff of his pipe, Sarutobi Hiruzen contemplated the beginning of a cycle anew. Twelve new village-trained shinobi had graduated. Twelve who with any luck would become the elite of a new generation. _‘This class is strong. They won’t disappoint.’_ And with that, he stood up and left. Another day of work stood on his doorstep, and he needed his rest.

 

**IRI**

           

The door creaked as it opened and the eyes of the newcomers met those of the occupants. Analysis made for a tense moment, but the restaurant’s patrons quickly recognized those in the doorway, and went back to their business. Without further preamble, Kakashi, Anko, and Asuma walked through the door of the small establishment.

It was an old shinobi haunt in the Northwest district near the inner wall: one of many to cater specifically to their kind. Each of the three took a careful look around as they settled into a booth, making sure their vision wasn’t restricted overmuch. Even in friendly territory, caution was a ninja’s best tool.

They sat down without any words and Kakashi flashed through several hand-signs, brushing his open palm over the tabletop and leaving a small black array. A basic perception-altering genjutsu now made it appear that the table was completely empty while also suggesting that any onlookers should direct their attention elsewhere, obscuring their activities. Finally, they pulled out the scrolls and began reading. It was barely a minute before Anko broke the silence.

“I call dibs on this Shiroken kid.” Asuma frowned, took a drag from his cigarette and turned his eye to her.

“That’s oddly specific right out of the gate. Why him?” She grinned back predatorily over the unrolled scroll in front of her.

“I saw him fight your Uchiha. Putting up even that much of a fight against one of them takes skills, not to mention this says he’s got one of the biggest chakra reserves in the class. I think little Byakuya could make a good front-liner.” Kakashi almost blinked; between her abrasive personality and obsession with dango, it was sometimes easy to forget the interrogator knew what she was doing.

            “Fair enough. So that leaves Sasaki Ichiro, Kumiko, and Haruno Sakura.” Each jounin looked over each of the dossiers once more before the conversation started up again. Asuma continued. “I’m thinking Ichiro, how about you guys?”

Kakashi shrugged. “Sure. In that case, I’ll take Haruno; I’ve got two close-mid-rangers already, she’ll probably be good support. What do you think, Anko?”

The woman in question shrugged back, not looking up from Kumiko’s scroll. “Sounds good to me.” Finally, they put away the scrolls, dropped the genjutsu and ordered plenty of food. Tomorrow was going to be interesting.

 

**IRI**

            Sakura brushed a loose strand of bright pink hair out of her eyes, frowning absently. The clock rang out three chimes; it had been two hours now. A whole. Two. _Hours_. She and her new teammates had been waiting around for their sensei ever since the end of lunch watching as other teams were collected for their first day as genin, and quite frankly it was starting to grate on her. It wasn’t even the lateness – annoying as the attitude it conveyed was – that was getting to her. It was the company, or more specifically their silence.

            While Sasuke had elected to wear his headband in the common style – tied across his forehead the same as hers – Naruto had opted to secure his on his upper right arm, with a green pair of goggles sitting in its traditional place. The last Uchiha had grabbed the window seat on the far left of the classroom, and Naruto was settled in next to him, leaving Sakura with the aisle seat.

She didn’t know either of them all that well, and she had been perfectly happy keeping it that way, but apparently someone had decided it was a good idea to throw her in with them. How this decision had been made was a mystery to her, but because of it, she had now been subjected to two hours with barely a word from either, as Sasuke sat reading and Naruto stared at the ceiling, occasionally chuckling for seemingly no reason. Sighing quietly to herself, Sakura rested her chin on the smooth wood of the desk and glared at the blackboard.

“Stop that.” Her gaze snapped to the glaring black eyes on her far left.

“Stop what?” Sasuke turned a look dripping with condescension on her, his black eyes narrowed.

“The sighing. You’ve done it at least five times in the last fifteen minutes and it’s annoying.” Naruto snapped out of his reverie as though he had sensed a great and imminent danger, his gaze traveling between his two teammates warily.

“Did someone say something?” Sasuke snorted and turned back to his book, flipping a page as though she’d never had his attention in the first place.

“It’s nothing. Haruno’s being annoying.” Sakura almost growled, and from the way Naruto was scooting away, her face wasn’t doing any sort of job hiding her abject rage.

“What _is it_ with you?” She stood above them both ready to pounce, and Sasuke tensed against the coming assault but thankfully, in that moment, the door opened, revealing their newly assigned sensei.

            Sakura couldn’t tell whether the man’s appearance was impressive or pathetic. He was remarkably tall, lanky and seemed all around disheveled, with his hair sticking up, his headband tilted down over his left eye, and his clothes rumpled. His outfit was mostly standard jounin uniform, save for the loose short sleeves that showed off a lean musculature, and metal-armored gloves of the same blue cloth, covered in carved markings. His drooping right eyelid conveyed what was probably disinterest. The mask covering the bottom half of his face made it hard to be sure.

            “Am I interrupting something? Because if I am, I can come back later, get some reading done.” He half-turned in the doorway, as though he really would leave if they wanted. Sakura grasped at straws, lacking any idea of how to respond to this person.

            “No, uh, sensei we were just…” She turned to her teammates in search of answers, but they were just as stumped as she was. Naruto smiled apologetically, rubbing at the back of his head without a care to their predicament. Kakashi didn’t bother turning back around as he continued.

“Well, if you’re done with that, we can start. Team Seven’s first meeting is on the roof in one minute. Don’t be late.” And with that he disappeared in a gust of wind. Sakura took the next few seconds to stare blankly at the spot their sensei had until recently occupied.

“Did he just arrive two hours late and then tell us to hurry up?”

Naruto nodded, expression perturbed. “Yeah, I think he did.” Sakura’s hands became fists and she rounded on both of her fellow graduates.

“Well are you just going to stand there? Come on!” Then she grabbed Naruto’s collar and started toward the stairs, muttering curses to herself.

            Somewhere along the way Sasuke caught up and they emerged from the stairwell onto the roof. It was a bright day, and their sensei was sitting with the slowly sinking afternoon sun to his left. Naruto and Sakura had to shade their eyes as the newly formed squad sat down in front of their teacher, Naruto straightening his clothes and glaring at his pink-haired teammate.

            “Well, aren’t you all just adorable.” Sarcasm was heavy in his words as he regarded them, obviously not taking them the least bit seriously. “My name is Hatake Kakashi. I figure it’s important for me to know about the children I’m supposed to educate, so how about we go around and introduce ourselves, maybe throw in some likes, dislikes, hobbies, dreams, you know the drill.”

            “Shouldn’t you have already gotten any information you need from our files?” Kakashi’s gaze snapped to Sasuke, and his one eye defied logic by communicating a grin that didn’t reach his eyes.

“Oh look, short, dark and broody is smart. Just for that, you get to go first.” Sasuke frowned (well, frowned more) but complied nonetheless, unclasping his hands and sitting a bit straighter.

            “Alright. My name is Uchiha Sasuke. I like exercise. I dislike sweet things mostly. I don’t really have hobbies, but I read and train. And as far as my dreams go… I want answers.”

            Sakura blinked at the strange conclusion. She’d expected him to scoff at the whole exercise, but despite her better judgment some part of her was legitimately interested in what he’d meant. Even stranger was the look on Naruto’s face. If his solemn expression was anything to go by, he knew what Sasuke was talking about. Kakashi cut across her thoughts in the same inattentive tone he’d been using the whole time he’d been with the three teenagers.

“Alright blondie, you’re next.” The whisker-marked boy muttered something about spiky-haired hypocrites, and scratching at his cheek as he responded.

“I’m Uzumaki Naruto. I like ramen and nice people. I dislike _jackasses_.” If Kakashi cared that he was being insulted, his eye didn’t show it, so Naruto continued. “My hobbies are mostly training, eating, and pranks. My goal is to clear the name of a friend of mine and become Hokage, so that I’ll be able to protect everyone I care about.”

            It was Kakashi who caught Sakura’s attention this time. It wasn’t even for a second, but she could have sworn she saw something go off in the man’s eye. Before she could really process or think about it, he had regained his self-control, and it was her turn to speak.

“Alright pinky, seeing as your hair is the most ridiculous of the lot, you get to go last.” She rolled her eyes at the verbal jab, but didn’t think too hard about it; years among her fellow would-be shinobi had long since desensitized her to any teasing.

            “I’m Haruno Sakura. I like my friends and… Well, I guess my parents, when they aren’t being annoying. I dislike my little brother, he screams all the time. I mostly spend my free time reading I guess. Every now and then I write a bit. My dream is… Well to be honest, I don’t know yet.” Kakashi looked at her appraisingly for a moment, before nodding.

            “Alright, now that that’s out of the way, let’s get down to business. Tomorrow will be your first day of training.” Naruto opened his mouth, but his sensei cut him off, “Sorry, _real_ training. The basics they covered in the Academy barely count as far as I’m concerned.” Sakura’s eyebrow rose at that.

“Then what was the point of it?” Kakashi turned his one visible eye on her, somehow expressing contempt and disbelief with less than half his face.

“To see if you have any potential at all, and where it lies if you do. Anybody who couldn’t meet their standards isn’t cut out for field work.” With that, he pulled out three scrolls from his equipment pouch and threw them directly at each of his genins’ foreheads. Sasuke’s eyes became red for a second as he snatched his out of the air neatly. Naruto fumbled for a second before pulling his against his chest, and Sakura caught hers between her palms just inches from her face. Without commenting, Kakashi stood and turned toward the edge of the building.

“I’ll expect you at Training Ground Three at 0900 sharp. Don’t be late.” And with that, he disappeared in a burst of wind.

For a second, none of the assembled Genin said anything. Predictably, it was Naruto who broke the silence, standing up and brushing off his pants.

“Well, he’s a dick.” Sakura stared down at the smooth stone between her feet. Normally the sight would have filled her with admiration for the Doton mastery that had gone into the creation of the Academy building. Instead, variations on a thought ran through her mind, repetitive and hollow.

 _‘I’m doomed. Ashura help me I’m doomed.’_ Sasuke said his usual non-committal “Hn,” which elicited a glare from his pink-haired teammate. Otherwise she didn’t react, and once again, a moment of awkward silence descended.

Naruto took it upon himself to break it. “So… Do you guys maybe want to grab some food or something?”

Sasuke once again grunted an affirmative. Sakura looked over at her teammates distastefully for a moment before sighing. “No thanks. My parents will want me home for dinner.”

Naruto frowned, but didn’t object. And with that, the newly formed Team 7 walked down the stairs and out of their school into the life of shinobi.

 

**IRI**

 

            Push up, relax down, repeat; it was easy, mindless, good for thinking. Kakashi was silent as he worked, the light exertion not really draining him all that much. He was fairly certain he had hisnew team of students pegged. The first time he’d been given one, several years ago, he’d summed up the whole group after about one encounter, and this new one was no different.

            The Uchiha’s scores had been the most overall balanced of the three while Naruto had leaned toward the practical side and Sakura the technical. Even so, none of them were so far off-center as to present a problem (a more common occurrence than you’d think).

Both Naruto and Sasuke possessed some form of special ability that would speed their growth exponentially. If the interaction he’d observed was any indicator, Sasuke and Sakura were already at odds, and Naruto was too biased toward the Uchiha to be an effective peacemaker. Come the next day, that dysfunction would either end the team on arrival, or be patched enough to sort itself out over time.

            The pink civilian girl was the easiest by far to figure out. She seemed, for lack of a better word, normal. Her bookwork and physical skills were of excellent quality, but not the sort of prodigious talent that some shinobi (like himself) displayed. The strangest factor was her anomalously small chakra reserve. She seemed relatively balanced mentally, if a bit intolerant. Her scroll made no mention of any preexisting focus. He’d have to experiment; otherwise she’d quickly be left behind by the other two _._

            Naruto meanwhile was not nearly as hyperactive as his reputation would indicate. In fact, he’d seemed almost asleep for the entire time he’d made the team wait. His documented abilities were… interesting, if unrefined, and his reserves were ocean-like in their quantity. Not for the first time, Kakashi wished he could have been more involved in the upbringing of his sensei’s progeny, but he quickly squashed the “what if” line of thinking; he’d long since seen where it led.

            And finally there was Sasuke. Kakashi could discern little more of his mind than his teachers could of his ability. Beyond a certain amount of confrontational arrogance, his personality was guarded. Saying that an Uchiha was headstrong was like calling summer leaves green, but beyond his near-fight with the girl he had never seemed angry. The fire behind those eyes was tightly controlled; Kakashi had expected an inferno and instead encountered a furnace. It was either very good or very bad. Only time would tell which.

            Quite an interesting group he had, if a bit angst-ridden, but far from functional. Between Sasuke’s anti-social tendencies and Sakura’s short temper, cooperation was already a problem. Again, he pushed up and relaxed back down.

 

**IRI**

 

            “So is there a reason Hatake isn’t coming along?” Anko sat down in the booth, leaning back and casually scanning the restaurant. They’d switched out from the previous night’s destination, if only for the sake of keeping up appearances. Designated meeting places were all too often opportunities for traps.

            “He’s probably getting ready for his big test tomorrow. Still don’t quite understand why he does it. Seems extraneous.” Asuma took a sip of sake and grimaced as Kurenai frowned back at him. This particular bottle was very strong.

“It seems fairly sensible to me. What with how his other team turned out, he has every reason to be a stickler for teamwork.”

Asuma grunted noncommittally. He’d seen his father administer the same test once and just hadn’t gotten the point. The fact of the matter was that nobody was ready straight out of the academy. They simply weren’t experienced enough to understand the pragmatism of their superiors and punishing them for that did nothing but thin the village’s numbers as far as he was concerned. Evaluating candidates was what the Academy was for. Knowing that topic would lead nowhere, he decided to change it. “Well, whatever. How are you guys liking the newbies so far?”

Anko smirked with just a tinge of sadism. “Byakuya’s got the build of an ox. Seems a bit headstrong, though. Kumiko’s a ditz and Hinata’s got exactly zero confidence in anything, but that’s just going to make it more fun when I destroy them and build them back up into name-taking badasses.”

Kurenai eyed her old friend with a sort of accepting exasperation achieved only from dealing with her for years. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. This is your first team. Not everyone’s cut out for this stuff.”

Anko looked back at her friend and scowled. “Hey, at least I can’t do worse than our old sensei. What’re your brats like?”

Kurenai pinched the bridge of her nose. “The Yamanaka’s a personification of arrogance, the Nara’s a lazy prick, and the Akimichi seems fairly codependent, but I suppose I did ask for them.” She sighed. “Asuma, what about you?”

“Well, right now my team’s not much special, but there’s a lot of potential there. Kiba’s got enough brute force for the lot, Shino’s got the mind of a tactician and Ichiro throws a kunai like no genin I’ve seen.”

Anko swallowed a sip of sake and frowned in thought. “Doesn’t Gai have a kid like that? Tutu or something?”

Asuma shrugged. “I think so. Maybe I’ll arrange some sort of joint training session, have the older kids give the rookies some pointers.” Knowing Gai’s attitude, it would probably go over well, definitely something to remember in a month or so. He put out his cigarette in the ashtray on the table and refilled his cup, a smile playing across his lips. “A toast, to a new year of genin.”

Anko grinned and raised her own cup, “To fresh meat.”

Kurenai followed suit, unable to keep her own smile contained. “To a new beginning.”

 


	5. Like Butter

_“Ashura and Akatouhi drank from their cups, and in doing so became traitors bound by purpose: to topple Indra and make the land whole, by any means necessary.”_

_-The beginning of Ashura’s rebellion against Indra_

_The Book of Ashura Chapter 1 (First Translation)_

 

Team Seven had been waiting for some time for Kakashi to arrive, and despite his determination and usual emotionless mask Sasuke was understandably nervous. He was not the most imaginative in terms of coping strategies, but he needed something to fill the time and he had no book, so he did what seemed practical: he went over his equipment.

He had fifteen kunai, ten explosive notes, and two small spools of chakra-conductive ninja wire in the equipment bag on his belt (not true Chakra-Steel from the land of Iron, but a passable alternative). He had fifty shuriken total: twenty-five in each of the holsters on his thighs.

On his back was a quiver with thirty arrows in it. His bow was in a small containment seal on the lip of the opening, so he could draw it and an arrow in one smooth motion. The whole thing had been a gift for his sixth birthday; given with the promise that by the time he graduated the academy he would grow into them.

He had gotten to sleep early the night before and eaten a simple but filling breakfast of leftover rice and a banana. His chakra reserves were at their current peek capacity. In those simple, practical ways he was ready, and that was all he needed to have some measure of confidence.

            Sakura wasn’t so sure. She couldn’t remember many specifics, but she remembered hearing the name Hatake Kakashi before and it had been spoken with something akin to awe. He was a jounin. Normal shinobi didn’t achieve such a rank unless they earned it, and that meant a good deal of skill, power, and experience. Guessing from the color of his hair, the man might be old enough to have lived through the last two World Wars, although considering the strange things chakra was known to do to that sort of inherited trait, she couldn’t be entirely sure. She herself was a case in point.

They were up against a man with superior speed, strength, and versatility. On paper, the task appointed to them seemed insurmountable. For the umpteenth time, Sasuke’s mind trod a similar path. He was sure his father had mentioned such a man in the past, with not a small bit of contempt.

Naruto was lying down on the grass, staring up at the sky, eyes narrowed in annoyance. “When the fuck is he going to get here?”

Sakura frowned at his language, but couldn’t argue with his mood. “Probably whenever he feels like it. It took two hours yesterday.”

Sasuke grunted an agreement and pulled out one of his arrows, looking it over closely. The small missile was simple: feather fletching, bamboo shaft, and a small, diamond-shaped tip of forged iron. Frowning, he replaced it and silently wished once again that he had brought a book.

Naruto sighed aggressively, like a teapot letting off steam. “So… Either of you want to play cards or something?” Sakura considered the idea distastefully for a moment before shaking her head. Sasuke did the same. “Oh come on, you guys have to be at least half as bored as I am.” No reaction. Naruto scowled, stretching an arm that had gone to sleep. “Sometimes I wonder why I even bother.”

Sasuke snorted in a sort of self-assured disbelief and Sakura’s frown went from contemplative to exasperated. “Fine, if it’s so damn important, I’ll play. What game were you thinking?”

Naruto sat up, abruptly switching to a wide grin, as though he hadn’t been dismissing her just a second ago. “Actually, I came up with this one myself.” He reached into his jacket and pulled out two decks of playing cards. “See, you take one of these and we both shuffle, then we switch off, just to make sure. We flip over the first five cards of our decks, and whoever’s total is higher gets to take all ten…”

He spent the next few minutes explaining the rules of his game and clarifying anything Sakura questioned. It was surprisingly thorough; he’d obviously put a lot of time and effort into it. She smirked to herself as he went over the games’ win conditions, counting them off on his fingers. _‘Maybe that’s why he never turned in half his homework.’_

They were just about to start a round when Kakashi appeared next to them, looking down at the cards quizzically. Naruto nearly jumped out of his skin, yelping at his sensei’s appearance. Sakura barely restrained her reflex to do the same. Sasuke simply stood, rolling his shoulders in preparation for the “survival exercise” their scrolls had described so vaguely.

            “Well, isn’t this interesting. If you survive today, you should teach me the rules.” Naruto gulped, far from oblivious to the calm, offhanded threat to his life. Sakura stood and bowed courteously to her sensei, while Sasuke opted for a simple head-nod as their blonde teammate picked up his cards.

            “I see you all came fully prepared. That’s good; your ability to follow a simple and direct order will surely be the downfall of all of Konoha’s enemies.” None of the three genin could quite tell if he was being completely sarcastic, which perplexed both Naruto and Sakura into internal grumbling and Sasuke into dismissing the whole interaction. Kakashi reached into his kunai pouch and pulled out a clock. Scratching the back of his neck, he turned a dial on the top and placed it on the bench.

“I’m going to assume all three of you read the scrolls I gave you. The survival exercises that it talked about will go like this.” He pulled two bells from his pocket, holding them up in front of his students lazily. But Sasuke noticed something new in his stance. His back was straighter, his arm steady even if his grip was loose, and his voice had become steady and weighted like the feel of a weapon in a person’s palm. It was subtle, but startling.

“You will each attempt to take one of these bells by noon. That gives you about two hours. You will have to come at me with not only every tool at your disposal, but also the intent to kill if you want to have even a small chance of succeeding. Anyone without a bell by the end of the exercise goes without lunch when twelve rolls around, and will watch me eat it in front of them. Not only that, but they’ll be sent back to the Academy for remedial training.”

            Sakura’s eyes snapped wide and she took a second to make sure she was seeing right. _‘There’s only two bells.’_

            “Shit.” Clearly Naruto had noticed it too.

Kakashi’s visible eye crinkled into what was definitely a smile. “As you can see, one of you is most definitely screwed. Exercise starts in three, two, one.” The clock chimed the hour and all three kids made beelines for the trees, sprinting like their lives depended on it. Kakashi took a moment to feel some satisfaction at how well-timed that had been as he watched them go, slouching and securing the bells on the left side of his waist. Without further ado, he began walking towards the center of the open grassy space. _‘Alright, let’s see if you kids can pull this off.’_

 

**IRI**

 

            Five minutes later, Sasuke watched Kakashi closely. The man’s hands were in his pockets, his visible eye scanning the tree line for any sort of movement. Despite his relaxed stance, the man hadn’t once seemed distracted. That weight was still there, and he finally put a name to it. He looked like someone in command.

            Finally, for the first time since the exercise had started, the man did something other than rotate on the spot. With what looked like a sigh, he stood a bit taller, and reached into his equipment bag. Sasuke tensed and activated his Sharingan, determined to outwit whatever ploy his superior was about to put in motion.

            Then Kakashi sat down on the bench and pulled an orange book out of his equipment pouch. Peering closer in disbelief, Sasuke saw that its cover read “Icha-Icha Paradise: Exclusive Collector’s Club Edition.”

            Sasuke almost growled. For a solid few seconds he had seen something powerful in the man, but all he could see now was something aggravating. It was as much of an opening as he was willing to wait for; he drew eight shuriken and threw.

            Kakashi didn’t even look at the barrage of metal screaming toward him, standing up and weaving past every spinning blade with ease. In the time it had taken, Naruto had already sprinted out of the tree line and was nearly on him.

            The blonde’s first running jab was telegraphed and easily avoided by the jounin, as was the sweeping high-kick which only reached Kakashi’s chest, what with Naruto’s lack of a recent growth spurt, but the third blow was significantly faster, far more fluidly executed, and glowing gold. Still, Kakashi didn’t bother to look at his opponent as he lazily tilted his head out of the punch’s way. Even as he missed, Naruto grinned. “HA!”

            Golden light exploded from the fist and Kakashi was sent flying ass over teakettle, turning his own midair rotation into a handspring and skidding to a crouched halt about five yards away. Sasuke didn’t give him a moment to recover, knocking and firing an arrow. As Kakashi dodged it, Sasuke smirked and made a tiger seal. The projectile exploded.

            As the smoke from his paper bomb cleared, Sasuke saw that his new teacher was nowhere to be found. Worse yet, none of the expected log fragments were there either; only clods of burnt grass and mud. A few seconds later, the tall man walked calmly out of the tree-line on the other side of the field, one hand in his pocket and the other holding his book as though nothing had happened.

Sasuke growled to himself; the smoke and dust from his explosive had made it impossible for him to see whatever technique Kakashi had used, let alone copy it. As Naruto charged in, right fist once again engulfed in yellow chakra, he drew two kunai, and ran in likewise.

            Naruto jabbed at Kakashi’s face, but the silver-haired man avoided it, this time by a wide margin. Naruto feinted another glowing punch, but at the last moment switched to a sweeping leg-kick. Kakashi jumped it and Sasuke leapt forward, both knives ready to skewer the man’s shoulders. His eye still firmly on his book, Kakashi’s foot shot out and took the Uchiha in the chest, at the junction of abdominals and pectorals.

The air left Sasuke’s lungs in an instant, and he retched as he collided with the ground and bounced. It was a testament to Kakashi’s self-control that the boy’s ribs weren’t caved in. As he finally came to a halt, and with a great deal of pain, he slowly pushed himself off of the ground; first to one knee, then to his feet. His chest was going to be one giant bruise in the morning, but otherwise he’d be fine; nothing felt broken or even fractured. Stumbling to his feet, the Uchiha looked around for the other two combatants and found… Nothing.

“Dammit, come back here, asshole! We aren’t finished yet!” The loud, obnoxious voice was only a few feet away. He finally spotted his friend… or at least his head, surrounded by a ring of displaced earth.

“Hey, Sasuke, get me out of here. I can’t reach my tools.” The Uchiha narrowed his eyes, and his Sharingan spun back into life. Before his eyes, the blonde became fuzzy and semi-transparent. He gritted his teeth.

“Kai.” The illusion dissolved and before him was an explosive tag, almost depleted. _‘No time to run, no time for a kawarimi. Shit!’_

            For a moment, Sasuke truly believed that he was dead. He didn’t see his life. He didn’t contemplate his brother or his best friend or even his dead family. All he felt was a supreme emptiness and a sort of aggravated disappointment; that this was all he’d managed to do before the end.

            _‘Pathetic.’_ The voice of his father was different, but recognizable; not its usual disapproving, but an echo of his own disappointed.

            Luckily for him, Kakashi was only a psychotic murderer of all ages when his job required it. A large cloud of sleeping gas knocked Sasuke out, leaving only a second or two for him to think on those feelings and wonder when he would finally find his answers.

 

**IRI**

 

            Naruto was in a very different predicament. His main concern at the moment was something along the lines of _‘How the fuck is this Cyclops bastard so godsdamned fast?’_

            Kakashi had been dogging Naruto’s tail for the past few minutes, making hit and run attacks, but never sticking around for any sort of prolonged fight. A moment after appearing, he’d vanish and Naruto would be left scrambling to locate his foe again, even as he nursed numerous developing bruises and one or two cuts. **‘Dammit squirt; stop letting him hit you!’**

He gritted his teeth and just barely leaned out of the way of an errant kunai. _‘Oh yeah, because that’s just so easy! He’s a fucking Jounin, what do you expect me to do?’_ Naruto was actually impressed that Kakashi kept managing to hide from him. Not once had he stopped channeling Kurama’s chakra, and the effects on his senses were powerful; he was no Inuzuka, but he probably could have found a decently talented Chunin without much trouble. _‘He must be using some sort of concealing jutsu.’_

            Just as he was starting to think that maybe Kakashi had moved off, the man appeared from above and behind, dropping an axe-kick into a hastily reinforced back that barely bore the assault. Naruto rocketed face-first toward the ground, smashing a golden punch into a large branch he’d been about to run into before making hard impact with the leaf-litter, wooden chunks falling around him. He felt as though someone had dropped an anvil on him mid-jump. Wheezing, he tried to push himself up, and found that his arms were lacking their usual strength, as well as screaming in pain.

_‘Little help?’_ He grunted as Kurama’s chakra flooded the bones, bringing a strange tingling sensation with it. It wouldn’t heal what were probably small fractures, but it would hold everything together until he could. The grey-haired man landed a few feet away, eye narrowed.

“That was pitiful.” Naruto saw the one thing he really hated in this world. Kurama couldn’t read the man’s emotions any more than he could read the Hokage’s, but Naruto could still see expression in that one eye. It wasn’t anger, and it wasn’t fear; those he had come to understand, if not totally forgive. It held something he’d never been able to stand for: contempt. The Jinchuriki’s face, already lacking its usual mirth, set into a deathly serious glare. He pulled his goggles into place and jabbed his thumb to his chest.

“Listen, you one-eyed scarecrow son of a bitch! I am Uzu-fucking-maki Naruto! I’m the son of two heroes and I’ve got the single most powerful thing on this planet sealed in my gut! I’m gonna be the greatest fighter this world has ever seen, and if you want to stand in my way like some sort of half-finished signpost, then you’d better prepare to be flattened!” Abruptly, he adopted a stance that looked vaguely similar to Gai’s, one hand behind his back and the other outstretched. He curled his visible fingers into a fist, which was promptly engulfed in golden flames.

“Hell, I bet I can take you with just one hand!” With a roar, he charged, even faster than before, fist cocked back.

_‘Half finished signpost? What does that even mean?_ ’ Kakashi closed his eye in exasperation as Naruto approached, absolutely sure that the kid must be an idiot. A powerful idiot, sure, but nonetheless dumb as sand. But within the fraction of a second it took him to reopen his eye, something happened. Instead of a charging blonde Jinchuriki, a fragment of log shrouded in thin chakra-smoke fell before him. He barely had time to pivot and divert the blow before it made contact.

Kakashi had been informed of Naruto’s ability to use the Kyubi’s chakra ahead of time; it was, after all, the boy’s most powerful asset. What he hadn’t realized was just how much of it he could direct. The released energy hit like a steam engine, and despite reinforcing his arm as best he could, there was no way he would have come out of the attack without chakra burns.

            But even as he shot out of the trees and back into the main training ground, he was correcting himself. The move had been beautifully executed, which was surprising considering Naruto’s general lack of finesse in combat so far; a mid-charge substitution that went against everything Kakashi had been led to believe about his new student.

_‘Misdirection using pre-established notions, followed by a powerful attack at the opponent’s blind spot; there might be hope for him yet.’_ Finally regaining full control of himself, he skidded to a halt and watched carefully, but found no hint of Naruto’s presence. He probably could have sniffed him out, but decided against it; he had yet to confront his third student. Perhaps it was time he did so.

 

 

**IRI**

 

            “Alright, assclowns! I am now going to explain to you very clearly why you all suck!” Anko’s three genin all sat under a large tree. Not one of them was without some form of visible injury.

            Shiroken Byakuya was a large boy, taller than either of his teammates by several inches. The skin around one of his dark green eyes was already discoloring, and his arms and legs were likewise beginning to bruise. His black shorts and green shirt were both covered in dirt and grass stains. On his face was the resolute anger of someone who has been defeated utterly, but doesn’t want to admit it. He was sitting about a foot away from the trunk, stubbornly refusing to take the support it offered.

            “You, big kid! You’re strong and fast, but you’re also an idiot. You attack with no regard for the consequences. If you don’t figure that out, it’s going to get you and your teammates killed.”

            She turned next to Kumiko. The girl had no surname, but carried a family heirloom with her; a double-ended spear was laid across her lap. It had completely failed to so much as nick her sensei. She was in a similarly black and blue state, her red-brown hair thrown into a great heap of disarray. Her face was set in a deep scowl, tinged with what might have been recovering shreds of determination. Unlike her teammate, she was unabashedly sitting against the tree.

            “And you, ditz! You were doing fine until you ran out of energy. Stamina like that gets you a one-way ticket on the Shinigami express!”

            The last member of the recently combined trio was the least scuffed of the three, though that was little comfort to her. The most immediately visible sign that she’d been fighting was the large dirt-stain in the middle of her jacket where she’d been introduced to Anko’s sandal, but she also had a long cut across her forearm. Of all the three she looked the most dejected, head bowed, eyes hidden behind her bangs.

            “And you.” Hinata jumped at being addressed, curling her legs farther in as though to hide behind them as well. “You barely did anything! By the time you worked up the nerve to even try, both of your teammates were out of the running and you stood no chance! If you can’t take any sort of initiative, you’ve got no business being a ninja.”

            Anko pinched the bridge of her nose, closing her eyes and making a sound somewhere between a sigh and a growl, tapping her foot a few times before she worked up the strength to continue. “We’ll meet here tomorrow at 0600. Don’t bother bringing your equipment; we’ve got a ways to go before I let any of you past the basics. Now come here, we have to dress that cut.”

 

**IRI**

 

            Sakura walked slowly through the trees, eyes searching as she went. She didn’t quite know what she was searching for, but maybe she’d know it when she saw it.

            Then a kunai ploughed through her back and out the front of her chest. The tiny flow of chakra maintaining the doppelganger cut off barely a moment later and eight shuriken shot from above toward the bush the knife had come from. Even as she threw, Sakura was on the move, taking a circuitous route toward where her sensei should (but probably wouldn’t) be.

            To her surprise, he actually _was_ still in basically the same place, shuriken embedded in the surrounding trees and dirt. He cocked his head at the girl charging him, eye narrowed. But even as she closed on him, he saw the telltale signs: no shadow, sounds that were fairly easy to tell from the real thing; it was another bunshin.

            “You know, one-trick fighters have this annoying tendency to die.” Completely ignoring the clone in front of him, he turned instead toward his blind spot, which a very real Sakura had just launched herself towards. Effortlessly, he caught her wrist mid-descent and brought her crashing to the ground, eliciting a grunt as her breath left her.

            She glared up at him, perfectly still as she recovered herself. Then, her hands shot together, and she disappeared, a large rock poofing into existence where she should have been.

            _‘So she was prepared for failure. That‘s good.’_ If she was as smart as her academy file said, then she was being reasonably cautious. All the same, it was entirely possible that this was a sign of lack of commitment; she hadn’t come at him with nearly her full strength.

_‘Testing me? Maybe. It would be in line with everything else I know. At least she can do kawarimi with one seal.’_ Regardless, she’d skipped out. That meant that all three of his students had tried and failed. He could have tracked them down fairly easily if he wanted to, but honestly, he had gained all the information he really needed. Now it was their job to come to him, and prove that they were worth his time.

 

**IRI**

 

            “Hey, Sasuke… Come on, wake up!” Bleary-eyed, the last loyal Uchiha did as he was told, looking up to see Naruto’s scowling, but relieved face against the dappled sunlight of the low canopy. Despite himself, the ghost of a smile came to his lips. “What happened to you?”

The blonde grinned back, bringing his fist up. “He chased me for a while; guy is freakishly fast. I managed to land a solid punch and ran off while he was flying.”

Sasuke frowned at the thought that Naruto had landed two blows and he hadn’t managed even one, but shrugged it off and sat up, wincing as his chest contracted. It was already sore.

            “If you guys are done, we should get down to business.” His head swiveled to the right and there sat the Haruno girl, her face carefully blank.

Sasuke almost growled. “I guess she’s asking to work with us?”

Naruto nodded, his face twisting a bit in awkward an awkward emotional inflection too nebulous to label. “Yeah…” They locked eyes for a moment and Sasuke’s expression made it clear; there was no godsdamned way. “Oh come on! We all just saw how strong he is; we can’t beat him with just two people, not at our level!”

            “And you think one civvie is going to make any difference?”

Sakura growled at the dismissal. “What I think is that you’re an idiot if you think you can win this with anything but the maximum possible resources. So I suggest you pull your smug face out of your ass and listen!”

Naruto glanced between his teammates, both poised as though they were about to fly at each other’s throats. Then, he did the thing he usually did: cut the tension. “Geez, just make out already, will you?”

Sasuke’s frown deepened into a glare and Sakura looked positively affronted, but at least for the moment, they weren’t preparing to kill each other.

**‘That joke was physically painful.’** Naruto grinned and glanced upward.

_‘Hey, it worked, didn’t it?’_

            “Even if she could help us, what then? There are only two bells.” Sakura looked at the ground, and Naruto blinked as the question pulled him back to reality. It was a few seconds before he responded.

“We’ll ford that bridge if we have to. All that matters now is getting the bells.”

Sakura nodded eagerly. “Exactly, though I think you might be off on what ford means... Anyway, with the right preparations, I think we can get them.” Sasuke stared at Sakura, directly in her jade eyes. The pink-haired girl rested her chin on her fist and returned the look as solidly as possible. “Agreed?” There was some challenge in that tone, and not a small amount of trepidation, but she held firm.

Sasuke smirked. “Alright, then. What’s your big plan?”

            “Well, first, we need to know what we’re working with; abilities, equipment, that kind of thing.”

Naruto nodded sagely. “Makes sense. I guess I can go first.” He held up his finger and ignited it, brow furrowed in concentration. “This is a special kind of chakra. It’s a lot more potent than the usual stuff, but kind of hard to control. I can give it basic commands, but it’s mostly for reinforcement… On top of that, my reserves are huge. I can basically spam techniques for as long as I want.”

Sakura squinted hard at the little flame. “Where does it come from? Is it a Kekei Genkai, or…” Both of her teammates were looking at her expectantly, so she decided to save her curiosity for later.

“Right, sorry. I’ve got the academy jutsu and a few basic genjutsu. My reserves are pretty small, though, and I’ve already used some, so we can’t rely on anything long-term. I can definitely do support and traps.” She turned her eyes on Sasuke, who nodded to himself.

“I’m probably best at shurikenjutsu, and archery, but I’ve got some katon techniques and my taijutsu is good.” They all sat in silence for a little while, Sasuke looking to Sakura in expectant challenge, Sakura staring down between her feet blankly, and Naruto glancing between them. Finally, the girl blinked back into focus and snatched up a stick from the ground, placing the point to the dirt and beginning to drag a diagram into existence.

“Alright, how about this?”

 


	6. Blue Moon Rising

_“You ask of me why all of this is necessary? Why we continue to struggle? We fight in the hope that this land of funeral pyres might become as one hearth; a fire that will cover the land, and unify it once again.”_

_\- Ashura justifying the War of Sagely Succession to his friend Akatouhi the Consumer_

_The Book of Ashura Chapter 3_

 

            The sun beat down from the clear sky; a beautiful day by all accounts. Nara Shikamaru and Akimichi Chouji both sat in the shadow of a tree at the top of a small hill, nursing the aches and pains of their most recent test. Or perhaps humiliation would be a better word. They hadn’t landed a single blow. But, as a small consolation, the sight of Ino getting her ass handed to her reassured them that they had never stood a chance.

The Rookie of the Year had worn a relatively simple outfit for her first day of training; her usual dark purple color scheme in the form of a short-sleeved jacket above lighter purple shorts and a mesh undershirt. Her legs and arms were bandaged off, her hitae-ate tied around her waist rather than on her forehead. There, a few strands of hair had fallen out of the braid that ran down to the small of her back. But that didn’t especially matter now; the whole outfit was covered in dust.

She hit the ground with a decidedly unladylike grunt. Kurenai was several feet away, casually bringing her foot down from the straight kick she’d just thrown.

“You don’t understand the situation I think.” She walked slowly toward her new student, eyes hard. “I’m not some career chunin who’ll take some hits and give you a gentle reminder on form. Do you understand?” Ino jack-knifed to her feet, settling into a low stance. Her eyes were narrowed in concentration.

“Crystal.” She launched herself forward, jabbing quickly with her right hand. Kurenai blocked the strike with relative ease, retaliated with a low kick that Ino sidestepped and shot a jab toward the girl’s face, which barely grazed her cheek, but still stung like hell. Recovering quickly, Ino pushed chakra into her fist and jabbed back, only to shoot out a low kick toward her sensei’s knee at the last second. Kurenai danced to the side of both blows, and Ino had to roll to reacquire her balance. Even as she came back to her feet, it was already too late. Her sensei’s fist connected solidly with her guard and sent her skidding onto her back again.

            “Alright, I’ve seen enough.”

Ino pushed herself to her feet, scuffed, but otherwise largely uninjured. “What do you mean? We aren’t done yet!”

Kurenai’s eyes turned onto the blonde girl, blazing red like molten rubies in the afternoon sun. “Oh really?” The girl didn’t bother responding; she had something to prove now, and dammit, she was going to prove it!

            She went for her tools. A smoke bomb exploded, shrouding them both, but Kurenai’s senses easily picked up the muffled sounds of an approach from behind. She whirled, bringing her hand around in a chop that promptly passed clear through a standard clone’s non-existent neck. Icy water shot up her spine to the back of her mind and she very abruptly found herself someplace else.

            A well-kept garden stretched out before her, filled with plants of all descriptions, and worn cobblestone paths through dappled sunlight. Immediately, she knew where she was.

“Well, you’re a bold one, I’ll give you that…” In all honesty, she didn’t know whether to be impressed by this latest ploy. On the one hand, switching tactics and attempting to control the field of battle were always good moves when faced with an insurmountable situation. On the other hand, running straight for a clan technique was textbook, especially for a fresh genin.

As she watched, the world seemed to warp and shrink around her; the sun above went dark and the trees reached out, the thorns on their limbs larger and more menacing than before. But she stayed calm, even as vines started to creep up her legs. She shot out a hand, and caught Ino’s neck in a vice. The girl’s hands grasped uselessly at her sensei’s fingers as she choked, her eyes locked on the small pools of fire that were Kurenai’s eyes.

“I’m a master of genjutsu. Did you honestly believe that my mind would be fragile?” Ino might have replied, but very promptly, the woman before her squeezed and she felt her larynx shatter, closely followed by a flow of blood from her mouth. Any scream she might have let out was nothing more than a gurgle now.

            “Sweet dreams.” The garden vanished and Yamanaka Ino went with it.

**IRI**

 

            “Any changes?”

“No.” Sasuke’s gaze had not wavered from his new sensei in the past ten minutes. Without further words, he scanned the tree line across the clearing and saw his friend, yellow eyes glowing from the shadows.

The civvie was next to him in a meditative pose, hands clasped together in a ram seal, generating and building up as much chakra as she could in preparation for what they were about to attempt. It had to be perfect. They’d taken too long on planning and preparation; they would only have one chance. Her eyes snapped open.

“That’s all I can hold. Ready?” Her voice was shaky with the effort of containing so much more chakra than usual, so concentrated that her locus had a visible blue aura.

He nodded and brought his own fingers up to his mouth in preparation, tasted the cold tang of metal against his lips. “Ready.”

She let out a whispered, clench-toothed incantation, and suddenly the tree line erupted. A hoard of Narutos and Sasukes poured out of the forest from every direction, yelling, brandishing kunai, and in general trying to seem as threatening as possible. They had sounds, they had shadows; she even managed to get the strange look of Naruto’s flames pretty well.

The fact that someone with such a small natural pool of chakra to draw from could come up with this much in just under ten minutes and maintain direct manipulation over every doppelganger she produced was some small step beyond intimidating, and the one-eyed jounin in the middle of the field seemed to agree, though he’d likely followed a very different road to that conclusion as he very nearly dropped his book. Sasuke recorded every exquisite detail of the moment as his uncovered eye widened in shock.

            But of course, the clones weren’t solid and the moment one of them passed through him, Kakashi knew something was up. Suddenly, the clones shot past him at outrageous speeds, taking advantage of their near complete lack of air resistance, and before long, they had all dispelled. There stood their sensei, in the middle of a field, completely tangled in chakra-conductive ninja wire.

            Interestingly enough, it had been Naruto’s idea. Even if they _were_ functionally incorporeal, clones were still made of chakra, and therefore had the same adhesive properties. With a little creative shape manipulation, they could be made to contain items just as easily as anything else, especially something relatively light. Sasuke smirked behind the wires, gathering chakra for one of his more flashy techniques.

 _‘Katon: Ryuka no Jutsu.’_ Flames burst forth from his mouth and sprinted down every one of the five lines of wire, colliding just moments later in a great pillar of immolation around their sensei. Smoke exploded as the few small bombs they had hidden in clones went off as well. Not a few seconds later, Kakashi shot out of the smoke, his visible eye red and irritated, with several burns all across his arms and hair. He didn’t get far; Naruto was already on him.

            The blonde met his sensei in mid-air, right fist glowing like a miniature sun. Even as Kakashi shifted to avoid the blow, knowing he wouldn’t be able to escape the shockwave, Naruto’s other hand shot toward the bells, closed around one and managed to graze the other before Kakashi kicked him in the chest and rolled to his feet, catching barely any of what would have been a powerful hit.

            Sasuke fired an explosive arrow to force the man back and give Naruto a chance to breathe, then lobbed a volley of shuriken and shot forward, intent on his goal. Naruto attempted to rush Kakashi’s blind spot, but he jumped well clear of the blonde’s fist, only to run into Sasuke. The boy shot forward and took Kakashi in the chest while Naruto simultaneously slid in to kick the man’s legs out from under him. He toppled, and Sakura, probably pushing through the debilitating effects of chakra exhaustion, shot out from her hiding place, reaching out a desperate hand.

            Even as her fingers began to coil weakly around the last bell, the alarm rang out. They could barely hear it from across the clearing, but its significance was practically deafening. They only had one bell for three people. _‘Oh shit.’_

 

**IRI**

 

            Hatake Kakashi was not an easily impressed man. He had wallowed for almost a decade in the village’s black ops division, and in that time seen quite a bit that he now wished he could have avoided. These kids, however, were something new and interesting.

            He’d never seen anyone use clones like that before, not the basic variety. The sheer control and mental coordination needed to pull off something like that was nothing short of incredible in a fresh genin. Sasuke had shown ninjutsu ability far beyond the norm and Naruto had used single-handed seals, the tricky little bastard. Kakashi made a mental note to find out just how many he could do. That was the sort of unexpected skill that could save lives in a pinch.

What’s more, all three members of the team had come together to execute a three-phase plan to knock him off balance and get the bells. Not only that, but it had worked, just barely, but it had. With the limited means and time available to them, the strategy was almost genius. It seemed that when the world decided to surpass his expectations, it just went all the way and shattered them for good measure.

“So what happened when you told them?” He noted that Anko’s smirk was just a touch less evil than usual.

“Well, Sakura was out cold, so I couldn’t get a read on her. The boys were… strange.”

Asuma frowned and took another swig of his drink. “How so?”

Kakashi somehow communicated a frown with just one eye. “Sasuke’s got this smug little thing he does with his face when he thinks he’s won something. I haven’t wanted to punch a minor that much in a while, but intellectually, I guess he deserved some satisfaction. As for Naruto… Never ask that boy to dance. Ever.” Asuma’s frown only deepened, but he dropped that particular thread, for the sake of everyone’s sanity. Anything that could make Kakashi shudder like he just had was best left unexplained.

It was Kurenai who picked up the conversation. “I wouldn’t be there when the civvie kid wakes up if I were you. People like her tend to react violently when they’re underestimated.”

Kakashi shrugged nonchalantly and leaned back in his seat. “Kurenai, if you get to be my age in this business, you’ll have too much experience getting around angry people to be afraid of one genin, no matter how worked up she is.”

 

**IRI**

 

            “MUD CLONES!?” Naruto shrank away from Sakura’s bedridden wrath, his frown deepening. He could swear he heard Kurama whimpering. Were her eyes getting darker? “We barely managed to beat one godsdamned mud clone? That’s the weakest earth clone derivative!”

Sasuke shrugged, leaning on the wall nonchalantly. “Yeah, made by a jounin.” Sakura did the closest thing to rounding on her darker-haired teammate that she could do in a bed, practically blazing with anger.

 **‘Of all possible times to talk, he chooses now? Is he insane?’** Kurama was the closest to terrified Naruto had seen him in a long time. He might have been in a similar state, but his mind had wandered off near the markedly calmer beginnings of Sakura’s rant, and so for the past hour or so had been contemplating whether he should try a new brand of ramen as his body laid in a chair by Sakura’s hospital bed. **‘I can _feel_ the rage off of her, there’s no place for argument here!’**

“And why the hell are you so talkative now?”

Naruto, still barely listening, didn’t think very hard before speaking up; otherwise he probably would have stayed out of it. “Oh, he’s just smug because he managed to kill one of them.”

Sasuke’s smirk was something to be reviled. It was worse than “knowing” or “superior.” To describe it as smug would be utterly insufficient. It was the same expression that Kakashi had witnessed the day before. Seeing as Sakura lacked the fire-forged self-control of a jounin, it was most definitely the wrong move.

            She moved like a comet through a clear midnight, blazing with rage and markedly faster than Sasuke, in his nonchalant position, was prepared for. She shot from her bed, the covers flying off. Her fist impacted with his face just a moment too fast for him to dodge and Naruto was completely unable to intervene what with the blanket he was now tangled in.

Sasuke managed to recover just a moment too late. Even as he pushed her off of his chest and grabbed her wrists, attempting to stand up, he found that he was still pinned to the ground as Sakura drew back for another punch. Even as she prepared to bring it down, his hand gripped her wrist in a vice. In the ensuing struggle, it took a rather loud throat-clearing for them all to realize that Kakashi was standing in the doorway, looking even more haggard than they assumed was normal for him. “So is this going to be a pattern with you guys? ‘Cause if so, you should probably start carrying some extra bandages.”

Sakura wrenched her arms free, stood up and smoothed her hospital gown, expression somewhere between mortification and annoyance as she tried to save some face. “You’re wit’s not as sharp as usual. Running out of quips already?”

Sasuke picked himself off of the floor, his hand up to cover his quickly blackening eye, jaw set behind lips pursed in pain and anger. “Hn.”

Maybe Kakashi was bemused, but his lack of uncovered facial features made it hard to tell. “Right. Anyway, once Sakura here is released from the hospital, we’ll be going on some missions; D-ranks for the time being. We’ll also be training in the morning and evening when possible. These schedules have more details.”

For the second time since they’d met him, his hand moved faster than they could follow and they were forced to grab scrolls out of the air. Naruto glared balefully at his sensei, clutching his instructions to his chest, where they had impacted. “From what the nurse told me, that means I’ll see you all tomorrow morning! Have fun!”

He disappeared in a gust of wind and Naruto sighed, lowering the hand he’d been in the process of raising. “He’s never going to stick around for questions, is he?”

Sakura shrugged, already looking through her instructions. “Probably not.” She glanced at Sasuke and saw that he was still glaring. “Oh get over it, I’ve seen you take worse.” He practically growled before storming out of the room, slamming the door as he went.

Naruto raised an eyebrow at her. “You know, you could try _not_ antagonizing him sometime.”

She glared and Naruto thought offhandedly that there were an awful lot of angry looks being thrown around. “Tell him the same thing. See how it goes.”

Naruto shrugged offhandedly. “Okay.” Sakura didn’t seem to have a response for that, so he opted to leave. “Well, see you tomorrow I guess.”

She nodded and turned away, looking out the window. Sighing to herself, she walked to the bed and slipped under the covers, only to yelp and jump right back out. She threw off the sheet to reveal a small, metal thumbtack. _‘When?_ **_How?_** _’_

“NARUTO!”

 

**IRI**

 

            A series of heavy **thunk** s marked the passage of another barrage of shuriken into a target. Sasuke grunted and let loose his own projectiles. Every one hit perfectly. The satisfaction did nothing for him.

“You know, if it really bothers you that much, I could try to get rid of that thing.” Sasuke spared a glance for Naruto’s earnest expression before pulling out another kunai and lobbing it. **Thunk**. The target dummy was pierced through the neck. If it were a person, several important blood vessels would be leaking onto the ground.

_The fresh and dried blood of his family mingled on the ground and eyes staring, no idea what to do._

“I’m not being your guinea-pig. Not after what you did to that pigeon.”

Naruto grimaced almost comically at the reminder. Neither of them had enjoyed explaining the leftovers of that particular incident to the Hokage. “Oh come on, that was a broken bone, this is just a bruise. I bet I could fix you up just fine!”

Sasuke snorted derisively, but despite his mood, a small smile pulled at his mouth. “Look, save a rabbit or something and then we’ll talk. Until then, not a chance.”

Naruto sighed and launched his own kunai, deeply nicking the left side of the neck and sending his weapon spinning away. Sasuke snorted.

“Hey, he’d be just as dead, right?” The blonde sighed and went to collect his steel, grumbling about smug assholes.

Sasuke flipped his last shuriken in his hand contemplatively, red gaze following its travel, learning its way, until with a harsh push of concentration, he saw its path. He flicked his wrist, sending it ricocheting off of a rock to lodge itself just outside the edge of the chest target. He frowned. _‘Itachi could do that when he was eight.’_ His father’s voice, with that same harsh edge of investment it had never possessed in life.

“So…”

He was snatched from the edge of brooding just as suddenly as he’d approached it, by Naruto’s return. “What?”

Obviously he’d been thinking about whatever it was for while, otherwise he would have just blurted it out. Naruto was strange like that. “I’ve, uh… well, I’ve been thinking that we’re on this team now, or whatever. And well, you and Sakura don’t really get along.”

Sasuke snorted and started toward his target, sandaled feet brushing the grass as he walked. “That’s an understatement.”

“Exactly! You barely know each other and you’re at each others’ throats every other second!”

Sasuke yanked a kunai out of his target and examined it offhandedly. “The point, Naruto.”

“Right, yeah, anyway, I’m not saying it’s entirely your fault. I’m just saying both of you could stand to be a bit more… I don’t know, civil, or something.”

Sasuke’s attention fled from his weapon. “You of all people are telling me to be more civil?”

The blonde contemplated the point for a second before shrugging. “Yep. That’s how fucking bad it is.” Sasuke might have called him out on his hypocrisy, but thinking about it, that only would have driven the point home harder. If there was one thing Uchiha Sasuke did not do it was give weapons to an opponent, and at that moment, fulfilling that policy meant staying silent.

 **Thunk**.

 

**IRI**

 

           

            It was a dreary, overcast day, and hot. The kind that could only end in a downpour and in the mean time made everything muggy and disgusting. Naruto glanced out of the trees and found Sakura’s eyes, tugging his sweaty t-shirt away from his chest to vent some heat. He brought his other hand up and quickly flashed a message.

 _Your lower left, spooked. Be cautious._ She nodded and leaned forward on her tree limb. Her eyes squinted through the leaves.

 _Confirmed. Moving out._ She swung fluidly to the bottom of her tree limb and ran down the trunk, taking care to stay just slow enough to remain silent. Naruto jumped to the next limb, ready to provide air support. Sasuke was perched on the other side of their quarry, black eyes narrowed. Sakura crept closer, watching her step so as not to snap anything underfoot. The target turned and she was forced to duck behind another tree trunk, barely restraining a curse.

            The cat Tora’s eyes swept the surrounding forest, ears swiveling. She opened her mouth, tasting the air and Sakura had to bite back choice words for the second time in as many seconds. Quickly, she stuck her finger in her own mouth and held it up. Silently, she exhaled.

 _‘Downwind. Good.’_ The humidity must have been messing with her. It had been careless to begin the approach without that knowledge, a rookie mistake. The reasonable side of her personality chose that moment to chime in.

‘ _I **am** a rookie. We all are.’_ It had been three weeks since they’d passed their exam. Three weeks of D-ranks and hammered fundamentals. She knew on paper the value of this stage in their careers, but that didn’t make it feel any less like unnecessary drudgery. This was the most action they’d managed to get so far.

Shaking the thoughts from her mind, she refocused. The ribbon-clad patch of shadow was moving off, stalking warily into the undergrowth. She cursed and stuck out a hand.

 _Third, intercept. Second, cut off. First, backup._ There was no need for a response. Naruto shot from the branches and Tora strafed out of his way, right toward Sasuke’s outstretched arms. A paw-full of well manicured claws shot toward the Uchiha’s prized red eyes and he flinched backward. The cat slithered, almost eel-like out of his grasp, and Sakura moved to cut her off.

            With a loud yowl, Tora collided with Sakura’s chest, snarling and slashing. She felt the fluffy fur on her arms and the tiny needles that crossed her cheeks and knew there was already blood running down them. Cursing, she tried to secure a good hold, only for the feline tornado to bite down hard on her thumb.

            She couldn’t help it, every instinct she had was screaming for her to get the thing away from her. With a cry of pain she dropped Tora, clutching the bleeding digit.

            The cat shot off, with Sasuke and Naruto in hot pursuit. Sakura glared at the quickly abating ruby flow for an annoyed fraction of a second before rushing off after them. The cat was fast, but they were faster. Naruto finally managed to grab her in mid-jump, taking her by the scruff and sticking his hand to her for good measure.

She struggled, but with all of her weapons held away from her enemy, she didn’t have much in the way of options. Sasuke, who had been the springboard for the preceding jump, stalked up to Tora, grabbed her by the chin and made eye contact.

“You listen to me very carefully.”

 

**IRI**

 

Sakura didn’t think she’d ever seen a cat in shock before, but if there were such a thing, this was it. The wife of the ruler of Hi no Kuni had sent a representative, in whose arms Tora was shivering, occasionally sending glances Sasuke’s way that might have been angry or terrified. Sakura didn’t have much experience reading the emotions of cats. Either way, the last Uchiha was making a point of not meeting peoples’ eyes.

“Please tell the Daimyo that his health is in our thoughts, Aonikou-san.” The woman bowed low, arms still cradling the black cat.

“Of course, Hokage-sama. The Lady will be quite pleased with the return of Tora-sama.” She rose from her bow and turned to leave, disappearing through the open door.

Immediately, the Sandaime made a seal, and the doors shut, rather forcefully. “Good, now that we’re alone…” His eyes focused on Sasuke. “Uchiha-san, please explain why you felt the need to torture that cat.”

Sasuke opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, and managed to stutter out a “Hokage-sama, I didn’t-“ Before Hiruzen cut him off.

“Sasuke-kun, I have been around for several of your lifetimes, I can recognize the signs of a badly administered interrogation genjutsu, especially via Sharingan. Do not lie to me.” His voice was deathly calm, but there was a hard edge below the surface that spoke of grave consequences should this conversation go wrong.

Sasuke gritted his teeth for a moment. “I… have no defense.”

“Good, because there is none. You endangered the goal of your mission for little to no reason using a technique you clearly haven’t mastered. It’s a small miracle there doesn’t appear to be any lasting damage.” He sighed, and seemed to refocus. “Use of a shinobi’s abilities requires forethought as much as split-second decisions; do not allow your emotions to control you so easily.” He looked at the boy for several seconds before nodding. “Naruto, Haruno-san, you performed admirably. The three of you may go. Kakashi, you stay.”

The three Genin filed out silently, though Naruto threw a concerned look over his shoulder. Hiruzen gave him what he hoped was a comforting smile. He didn’t think it helped all that much; Naruto was one of the few people who could consistently see through his masks.

The door closed behind the three genin, and they went to exit the building, silent as the grave as they descended the stairs and walked out the door into the dull, cloud-filtered sun.

 

**IRI**

 

Sakura stared down at her book, and for once, found that she could not pay attention to the words that filled it. For the umpteenth time, she went back to the beginning of the page, but it wasn’t long before she found herself lost once again, and put the book down on her lap. She sighed heavily, and confronted her problem.

Uchiha Sasuke was one of the most confusing people she had ever encountered. That was what it boiled down to, but the entirety of the thing was something more, so she broadened her focus.

She and her teammates had sparred on several occasions over the past few weeks, so she had found herself facing Sasuke multiple times, in many different ways. On the surface, he came across just as he always had: cold, detached, and arrogant. But as she’d traded blows with him, she’d found something different.

Sasuke fought hard against Sakura, harder than he fought against Naruto even. She’d never thought he had been holding back before, but now it had become clear to her that he must have been, for the last few years in the academy, if not longer. His taijutsu form was flawless, and he moved with imagination and purpose. He was one of the most challenging opponents Sakura had ever fought, perhaps even better than Ino.

So why hide that talent? Why try to stay at the middle of the class when he could be at the top? Did he not want to attract attention to himself? Maybe he didn’t want to be separated from Naruto?

 _‘No, even with nearly the same ranking, there would be no guarantee they’d end up together. But maybe…’_ It hit her full-force, like the pieces of a puzzle, falling into place of their own accord: his arrogance, his obviously hidden abilities, and a brother who had been at the top of his own class.

 _‘He didn’t want to be paired with a weakling. He knew about the tradition of pairing the deadlast and Rookie of the Year, and knowingly restrained himself so he wouldn’t be held back.’_ It was pure, clan-bred assholishness, spread out over a period of years. Even as she raged at the arrogance of such a thing, a part of her was impressed by the commitment inherent in such an act.

 _‘But that still doesn’t explain why he would have it in for me.’_ And so she returned to the root of her problem. Uchiha Sasuke, a clan heir born and bred until he was orphaned by his own bother and left with no parental figures whatsoever, had every reason to have anger issues. Perhaps she was simply a convenient target.

 _‘No. There’s a look in his eyes. This is more than just some sort of random bullying. This is personal.’_ Lying awake with nothing but the hum of her fan for company, Sakura spent the next few minutes banging her head against the brick wall that was Uchiha Sasuke’s issue with her. But no puzzle piece appeared to complete the image this time, no matter how hard she tried, no matter how many angles she attacked it from. Finally, with an angry sigh, she put her book on her nightstand, turned out her light, and closed her eyes. She fell asleep to the soft patter of the first few drops of a long-expected rainfall.

 

**IRI**

 

Naruto’s eyes stared blankly at the ceiling of his room. The skies outside were dark, and utterly starless. Barely half an hour earlier, at around 2200 hours, the overcast sky had released a furious curtain of rain. Still, the downpour outside his small, grimy window was not what occupied Naruto’s thoughts, partly because he hadn’t noticed it.

The sound of intermittent drops echoed down the tunnels of Naruto’s mind as he looked down at the water he was sitting on. He hadn’t seen Jiji as angry as he had been that day in quite some time, and even that was a barely-remembered event. The Hokage was a well-controlled man, even-tempered and cheerful. It was a mark of danger when he moved past interested or resigned into serious. Naruto gritted his teeth. “You’d think Sasuke would know better than to torture a damn cat.”

Kurama shifted behind his bars, leaning his jaw on one hand. The fox’s voice carried without even trying in the dark cavern, his slit-pupiled eyes narrowed in a wary sort of sadness. “Well, he’s never been the most stable person, has he? Not since the Massacre anyway. He’s prideful, and this whole spate of chores has been getting to him. He would have taken it out on something eventually; the cat was just conveniently infuriating.”

Naruto looked up at the closest thing he had to an older brother, surprised at the emotion he saw there. “Well, I guess you’d know; sort of weird for you to care about something like that, though. He flips out when he thinks people are pitying him.”

Kurama shrugged. “I’ve had years to feel the little bastard out. There’s darkness in him beyond his years… More than I can remember seeing in someone your age. And he doesn’t keep as tight control of it as you do, much as he tries. But he’s stepping out into the real world now, and if there’s one thing my father taught me, it’s that for a human, leaving the nest is always dangerous.” He spoke with that strange reverence that he reserved only for the man who had created him. Naruto had heard a lot about him, and even corrected some of the Hokage’s history. His next phrase had the air of a well-remembered quote.

“Nobody who is alive is safe from death, no matter how many rulers, or walls, or armies of men stand between them and the dangers they know. The both of you will need each other, and others besides, before the end. Nobody can survive a world as vicious as this on their own.”

 

**IRI**

 

In the next room over, Sasuke lay in his bed, awake, and silently berating himself, as he tended to do whenever he lost control of his emotions.

 _‘Itachi would never have snapped like that. He’d never endanger the mission for the sake of his own anger.’_ The berating voice of his father was as insistent and disappointed as always. He hated it. There were times when he almost hated the man himself.

 _‘Itachi seemed perfectly willing to snap on the night he murdered our entire family for sport. When he called the leaders of our clan cowards, and split our seal in half. Where was his restraint and dedication then?’_ The voice of reason cut across with it’s usual clear, even tone, just a hint satisfied as the angry presence was left momentarily unable to respond.

 _‘I still don’t know why. What reason?’_ Just as it always did, the sad, forlorn voice of confusion and loss filled the void. Sasuke felt that need just as strongly as the day he had awoken to clear direction and clearer sight. The night the differences had all but disappeared from the waking world, and he had decided his path.

 _‘And running around chasing cats helps me follow that path how? What use will I have for painting fences and pulling weeds when I’m trying to force answers out of a psychotic ANBU prodigy?’_ The voice of reason again, more indignant then before. Sasuke rubbed his temples and groaned. He had walked this path more times than he cared to recall, and the circle of unanswerable questions and emotional torment never failed to give him a headache. He turned his head to regard his clock and found that it was now nearly midnight. He had training tomorrow. He needed rest.

Closing his eyes, he turned his face to the sky and breathed deep. The bickering voices of his own thoughts were no quieter than he had left them, but as he released the breath and relaxed his body, there emerged a new strength within him.

“Enough.” Each voice dimmed, and faded to near-silence, as though he were shutting a window against the wind. He took another deep breath, in, and then out, slowly, feeling all that his body did, the rasp of air in his lungs, the thump of blood through his body.

He lived, he breathed, he had purpose, and most importantly, he was tired beyond reason. These truths cut through his troubles like a sword through a training dummy, not easily, but with purpose, and a sense of inevitable victory. It wasn’t long before Uchiha Sasuke drifted off into an unusually peaceful sleep.

 


	7. Cross Country

_“The nature of chakra is one of the most hotly contested questions in the history of science. While admittedly archaic and oversimplified, the commonly accepted wisdom that it is a mixture of ‘mental and physical energies’ has some truth to it. Extensive research on the part of the Order of Brothers of Sagely Insight has revealed that chakra is the product of two thus far indefinable entities: one, which gives it potency, and the other, which allows for easier control. The balance of these so-called ‘energies’ is what gives individuals their unique chakra signature, as well as affecting the body in numerous ways._

_However, almost everything else about chakra remains unclear. The source of the components, how the body is capable of manipulating and combining them, why it can seemingly warp the rules of existence and adapt to the workings of its hosts without any input from them; despite well over a thousand years of recorded use, all of these questions and many more remain utterly without explanation.”_

_On the Nature of Chakra Chapter One (required academy text)_

 

Chapter 6

Cross Country

 

Sakura stared forlornly down at the sad little thing on her windowsill. The other day it had been a flower, maybe a bit weak, but definitely alive. Now it was a soggy, shriveled excuse for a plant in a pot that, now that she was really looking at it, had definitely seen better days.

She sighed at it and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. For all her encyclopedic knowledge and stubbornness, botany was one thing she had never excelled at. Her father sometimes joked that if plants had burial rites, she’d have a small crypt going. She could still remember the look of long-suffering disappointment on her mother’s face at that joke a little over a month before her graduation, while she carried a dead, dried-up little herb out to be disposed of in the immaculately maintained back yard.

She had awoken that morning to the piercing glare of sunlight filtering through her window, and the sound of her alarm clock’s metallic ring. She was quick to wake, as per usual, slamming her hand onto the clock, and rubbing the sleep from her eyes. After a clumsy stretch to get the blood flowing in her arms again, she pushed herself into a sitting position and turned a lingering gaze on the excessively bright outdoors.

The sky was a beautiful blue above the rooftops, streaked with a few clouds drifting on a light breeze that carried the scent of some blooming plant or another. Ino probably could have named it, but Sakura found herself at a loss. Finally, her eyes had settled on her latest failed attempt at gardening. Now here she stood, in rumpled pajamas, staring blankly and wondering what had been the decisive blow for this particular attempt. Lack of watering? It had been dry for over a week until the day before. The downpour had probably come far too late to help the pathetic little thing.

            Banishing thoughts of her soon to be vacated windowsill, she turned away from her window and walked across the room to her door. She shuffled down the hall into the bathroom to take care of her bodily needs, brush her teeth, and get her hair into something that could no longer be called a tangle still far from awake, but so used to the motions that they came easily. Once she might have taken a shower as well, but she had learned quickly enough that she would want one come the day’s end, and her mother raised hell whenever she thought someone was wasting water, so she wasn’t about to risk taking two.

Freshened up and a bit more aware, Sakura walked back to her bedroom, stretching her shoulders as she went. Her closet swung open with a casual flick of her wrist, and she carefully selected some fresh clothes, pulled them on, then turned her attention to her nightstand. With an air of calm repetition, she opened a carved wood box about the size of a loaf of bread. Inside was a small piece of amber with a line of carved kanji encircling it like a ring. She clasped it between her hands, and closed her eyes.

“Ashura-sama, Reconciler, Father of the Great Powers, your body is broken, but your spirit lives on. Ward we who remain faithful against that which seeks to harm us, and help us to continue your mighty work. In the name of your Father, and all those who came before. Subete ga touitsu sa rete.” She finished the prayer in something of a calm rush. She had memorized the words years ago.

“Nee-san! Mom says you have to get up!” Sakura sighed and turned to her door. Her brother wasn’t old enough to have much talent at anything, but damn if he couldn’t yell with the best of them.

“I _am_ up! Tell her I’ll be down soon!” She heard him scrambling down the stairs to deliver the message and sighed. _‘Alright, I have a few minutes.’_

She turned back to regard her appearance in the mirror that sat behind the box. She frowned; the scratches from Tora’s claws were still there, though they had stopped bleeding quite some time ago. She smoothed a few stray strands back into place, bringing her bright green irises into stark relief for a moment before she picked up her headband.

Sakura ran her thumb over the metal plate and smiled to herself. Even after two weeks, the novelty of finally being a ninja, a real kunoichi, hadn’t worn off yet. She had worked hard for her place in this system, and as she stared down at the smooth metal plate shining in the reflected morning sunlight, the satisfaction of that achievement made her feel more complete than most people her age could hope to.

            Still smiling, though slightly more sardonically, she adjusted her grip on the headband and tied it across her forehead, pulling the knot just tight enough behind her and turning back to the dead plant in her window. ‘Alright, let’s get you out to the compost heap.’

 

**IRI**

 

            “Ooh, now this right here is an interesting hand. Absolutely fantastic.” Sasuke frowned over the top of his cards and raised an eyebrow.

            “Naruto, you’ve been asking me to try this damn game for the past two weeks. Shut up and play.” Said game’s creator raised an eyebrow of his own, matching Sasuke’s annoyed frown with an inquisitive sort of pout, and adjusting his sitting position on the cold ground.

“What’s up your ass?” He stopped, seemingly to consider his own question before turning back to his friend. ”Wait, no, it’s the cat isn’t it? Guilty conscience keeping you up?” The pout became a smile, but with Naruto, anything less than a grin was either breathtakingly sincere or forced. Something told Kakashi this wasn’t a moment of truth.

“No, on second thought, it can’t be that. That would suggest you have emotions. Can’t have the nobody else here getting that idea. It’s almost as preposterous as a fox who can feel peoples’ emotions tipping me off to your problems.”

_‘Oh, well, maybe it is.’_ A sarcastic moment, but truthful nonetheless.

“You know, I read somewhere that talking too much is a sign of stupidity.” Sasuke’s jab was an obvious one, but there was no venom behind it, nor was there in Naruto’s retort.

“Damn, Kiba must be a total fucking idiot.” It was a tough call, but Kakashi could have almost sworn that Sasuke smiled a bit at that.

It was amazing how fast public opinion had turned against the kid in the year following the death of his clan. Kakashi hadn’t had much time to grieve in the aftermath; he’d been sent on search and rescue for the few clan members out on missions at the time. He and his team had returned with bodies, only to find out that a kid who had practically been his protégé was responsible for all the carnage. He did not have a good track record of dealing with loss, and this was no different. He buried himself in his work and very nearly forgot there had even been a survivor.

Quite frankly, it wasn’t hard to see why the villagers had turned on him. Sasuke was notoriously hard to get to know, or even get along with, and Kakashi’s own observations in the year he’d been on Asset Watch duty had only confirmed the common wisdom. His scores in class had dropped from dominating to slightly above average, and strangely he didn’t even seem to care. He kept to himself, associating only with Naruto and rebuffing any sort of advance. He was basically breeding stock as far as the village went.

And now he was Kakashi’s student, in conflict with one of his teammates, and so smugly superior it made you want to knock his teeth out.

The elite jounin glanced away from the first two of his charges to arrive at the park as Naruto began an exaggerated imitation of an angry civilian, yelling about animal cruelty and ninja witchcraft. He was leaning against a tree-trunk, unseen thanks to their preoccupation and his own hard-won skill at hiding his presence. He had been sitting on that same branch for - he looked up to check the sun’s position through the leaves and frowned - a good hour now. Pretty soon, he figured he’d be bored enough to let them know he was there. Watching teenagers talk and play cards was a lot like a sermon; the longer it went on, the more it devolved into boredom and white noise.

The crunching sound of inexperienced feet on compacted dirt alerted him to the arrival of his third charge, and her ridiculous hair meant that his eyes found her less than a second later. Her clothes were still largely civilian: the same sort of shorts she had been wearing for the past week, and a t-shirt. If it weren’t for her headband and the gear strapped at her waist and thigh, he doubted he would have known she was a kunoichi.

She gave them both a polite, measured “Hello” as a greeting, and received a rather unenthusiastic “Hn” from Sasuke that she didn’t favor with a response. Naruto on the other hand waved even as she was within ten feet of them and practically yelled “Good morning, Sakura-chan!” Kakashi smirked behind his mask. She was halfway into a cross-legged sitting position when he formed a hand-sign, pushed off from his branch and blurred into a smooth shunshin. He appeared with only the slightest shock-absorbing bend of his knees to suggest he had moved, and not simply appeared out of thin air.

“Good morning.” He said it loudly, even as he managed to maintain his usual nonchalant air. He had touched down barely an inch behind Sasuke, and was happy to see that for as calm as the boy usually seemed, he still jumped when snuck up on so suddenly. The moment passed quickly, but Kakashi had a good eye. While Naruto started packing away his cards, Sasuke rose to his feet, settled his hands in his pockets and waited for his teammates to join him.

“I’ve got exciting news for you all!” A beat passed and the kids stood before him expectantly. The seconds dragged on and Naruto glanced off into the distance. Sakura shifted her weight a bit. Kakashi considered letting it drag on longer, but decided against it.

“We’ve got a mission!” Sakura raised an eyebrow, Sasuke remained utterly impassive, and Naruto gave voice to what all three of them were clearly thinking.

            “We’ve been going on,” here the blond utilized some rather sarcastic air-quotes, “‘missions’, for two weeks Kakashi-sensei.” Sakura nodded in reluctant agreement and Sasuke eyed his teacher with the most broody variation on curiosity that the man had seen in quite some time.

            “Oh don’t worry, if we were going on another D-rank, I wouldn’t have bothered saying anything.” Scrolls shot toward their faces, and all three managed to catch them unassisted and without trouble. Kakashi took some small pride in that fact as he continued.

“There have been some worrying disappearances in the farmland to the immediate south of the Capital. The Hokage has decided that we’ll be pulling a sweep of the area. Our orders are to head to Ueno Village, identify the perpetrators, and, assuming they’re bandits or low-level thugs, deal with them.” Sakura almost gasped, but the momentary openness of her mouth was a nice substitute. Naruto took barely a second to start whooping happily as he jumped up and down, and Sasuke’s interest became slightly less broody as his whisker-marked friend pulled him into a mostly one-sided celebratory jump-hug. Kakashi took it as a good sign.

“You have until nine to go home, pack for a week-long trip and meet me at the Outer Gate. That gives you a little under two hours. Understood?” All three nodded. “Good. Dismissed.” Without another word, Sakura and Sasuke shot off in opposite directions. Naruto, still grinning broadly, took a moment to grab Kakashi’s hand and shake it vigorously. He was honestly too surprised to stop the kid.

“Thankyouthankyouthankyou!” A second later, he was speeding away in a cloud of dust, whooping and laughing as he went.

 

**IRI**

 

            The outer wall of Konohagakure no Sato was an impressive, if simple-looking structure, all things considered. It encircled the entirety of the village proper, as well as the training grounds, and the mile of almost uninterrupted forest that sat just within it. Large square lookout towers half again as tall as the wall sat at each of the cardinal directions except for the South, where the faces of the four Lords Hokage kept watch over the village they had sworn to protect. At each mid-point there was a large, stone-ringed gate, the Northwestern of which Team Seven was currently approaching at a brisk walk. Even more impressive was the fact that the towers just barely stood taller than the trees inside the wall, supposedly grown by Senju Hashirama himself.

Every one of its fifty feet of height was made of perfectly stacked smooth white blocks of solid stone, supposedly forged from the bodies of a now-extinct clan of earth-aligned nendos.

When Akio had heard the story as a little boy, he’d been scared shitless. Even now, stationed as a guard, being near the thing left him unsettled, though not nearly so much as the thing now walking towards him.

            He’d only been a kid when the attack came, a genin, barely older than the grinning thing looks now. He could remember the fire, the screams, the driving wind and shaking earth, all drowned out by the roars of unrestrained hatred and rage that penetrated his soul and brought him to his knees even as his friends screamed at him to run. He remembered finding his little brother in the wreckage, seeing the steel girder that had crushed his ribcage and the guilt that had flooded him when his first thought was relief that all he had lost was a leg.

            He clenched his pencil tighter and gritted his teeth. He was safe from them, the monster and its red-eyed pet. They would be gone soon.

            “Genin Team Seven; we’re off to hunt some bandits south of the capitol. Here’s our mission clearance.” Their teacher held out a stamped sheet of paper, and he realized with some surprise that the tall man before him was Hatake Kakashi. He calmed a bit. The man was a living legend. Now he had even less reason to be afraid.

            Akio took the form and looked it over as quickly as possible, forcing a smile for his superior. “Well, everything looks right to me.” He reached under his desk for the correct stamp, and brought it down in the upper right corner before handing it back. “Good luck, Hatake-san.” The masked man gave him a curt nod, and the group of four continued on their way, out of the gate. He muttered a prayer to Ashura for the safety of Hatake and the pink-haired girl with him. They traveled with a demon, and nobody in that position could be considered safe.

 

**IRI**

            Sasuke gazed impassively at the road ahead. It was dirt, bordered by trees smaller than the fare that had overlooked them behind Konoha’s walls, mostly untouched by the jutsu of the first Hokage, save for one enormous exception in the distance. The warm morning air was filled with birdsong. Somewhere in the blue expanse of the sky, he thought he heard a hawk calling. It was peaceful, unrestricted, and in a welcome change from the day before, not at all too humid. He liked it.

            “Alright, no sense letting all this travel time go to waste. Naruto, explain shunshin to me.” The boy nodded resolutely, preparing his mind as best he could. Over the last two weeks, Kakashi had done similar things numerous times during monotonous D-ranks and even occasionally in the middle of spars. Sasuke winced at the memory of Sakura’s foot connecting with his nose when the first of many unexpected questions had left him completely open.

            “Oh, uh, right, yeah. So, you flood your whole body with as much chakra as you can put out, then let out a big burst from your feet as you step.” Kakashi nodded, eye still trained on his book.

            “Exactly, and why do we flood our body first?” Naruto grimaced, and Sasuke could almost hear the words before they were out of his mouth.

            “So going that fast doesn’t shred our guts out of our back through our ribcage?” Kakashi actually blinked for a moment, unprepared for that sort of response.

            “Technically correct, I suppose, but a bit gruesome. Who told you that?” Naruto nodded toward his roommate, still visibly shaken at the mental image.

            “Sasuke said it to keep me from trying to flicker before I got reinforcement down.” The boy in question smirked to himself in quiet satisfaction. Hidden from view by his mask, Kakashi contemplated the malicious sort of quasi-parenting Sasuke had pulled off there, filed away the phrase for possible later use, and moved on.

            “Alright, how about he answers a question then? How does reinforcement work?” Sasuke sighed internally. He missed the quiet ambiance of birds already and responded offhandedly, his gaze wandering down a fork in the road as they passed.

            “Your chakra holds your body together in the shape it should be, which makes it more durable.” He saw Kakashi nod out of the corner of his eye.

            “Good. Sakura, what can you tell me about the region we’re headed to?” The girl blinked at the sudden change in topic, but managed to adapt relatively well, biting her lip in that way  he’d noticed she always did when she tried to remember things.

            “Well, we’ll be near the capital, so we can expect mostly hilly terrain, not many trees. I don’t know that I’ve ever actually heard of Ueno before, but if it’s mostly ranchers and corn-growers like the briefing said, we can expect people to be fairly spread out, which will make gathering evidence difficult.” She frowned to herself for a moment.

“Actually, something has been bothering me, Kakashi-sensei. We only ever heard about these bandits because people discovered evidence after the fact. Nobody has actually seen them, and there aren’t a lot of places for people to hide in that area. No large forests, no cave systems that we know of. If they really are still in the area, they need to be confident they can defend themselves in the open, especially so close to the capital. If they aren’t, then we’re stuck trying to pick up a trail that’s already weeks old.” Kakashi nodded, eyes still trained on his book.

            “Good. Sasuke, this tells us?” He favored Naruto with a smirk, which the blond returned.

            “These kidnappers might actually be a challenge.” He extended a fist to his friend and Naruto hit it eagerly. A bit too eagerly, in all honesty; Sasuke’s knuckles felt raw now.

            “Don’t get ahead of yourself.” The Uchiha looked over to his teacher and was surprised to find the man’s eye away from his book, deadly serious. “Running headfirst into an unknown is an excellent way to die young. We’re going to take this slowly, and try to get a better feel for the situation.” Naruto nodded, looking down and away almost as though he felt guilty. Sasuke turned back to the trees and didn’t comment.

 

**IRI**

 

            It was a long day’s walk, and they barely made it out of the forest before darkness overtook them. The set up camp quickly, just like they had practiced hundreds of times in the academy, and Naruto was assigned first watch by order of Kakashi.

            Despite the fact that it was late spring, going strongly on summer, the night was breezy and cool, to an almost uncomfortable degree. The young genin did another sweep of the surrounding countryside, eyes burning yellow against the dark curtain of night.

Kakashi had elected to have them forego a fire. There was no reason to broadcast their position, especially considering the nature of their mission. It meant eating field rations for dinner, but any complaints died before they could be voiced. Not once had any of the genin won an argument with their teacher.

            Even so, the process of waiting around with nothing to do but watch the grass rustle in the wind was leaving Naruto remarkably bored. So his attention soon drifted to something wondrous: the stars.

            For all that it was called a village for the sake of tradition, Konoha was a city, and a relatively large one at that. Electricity had lit the streets and buildings of the first Hidden Village for years, coming into prominence first after the Third Shinobi World War. Given that level of light pollution, Naruto had almost never really seen the stars. The best he could see through his window were a few planets, and maybe a few other celestial bodies of great strength.

            But Konoha was well ahead of the curve on electrical technology. Most cities still used gas lamps, and nobody had the money to light the open road, let alone maintain and protect them. Above him, the sky was a blanket of lights, shining down in such great numbers that he could never have hoped to count them all.

He thought he recognized one or two constellations. To the North sat the winding Dragon who fought alongside the first sage against the Jyubi, and whose eyes were the Twins, each of which was as bright as any other two stars put together. To the south, there was the Turtle, alone in the sky with nothing to protect it but its shell. Jiji had taken him up to the Hokage Monument to see them once, but that was years ago, before he had even met Sasuke.

It was another few hours before the Uchiha came to relieve him. The sudden feeling of his hand on Naruto’s shoulder caused the boy to jump. His sharingan spun lazily, glowing dull red in the moonlight. “Aren’t you supposed to be watching for people trying to murder us in our sleep or something?” Naruto had the good grace to look guilty.

“Sorry, I, ah… Look, the stars are really nice out here.” Sasuke raised an eyebrow and looked up at the sky appraisingly.

“Yeah, I guess they are… You should still be keeping watch, though.” Naruto stood up and stretched his legs, smiling apologetically under glowing yellow eyes

“Don’t worry, I would have heard anyone coming. Besides, it’s not as if we’re making a big show of ourselves.” He cracked his neck and sighed. “Anyway, I’m gonna get some sleep. See you tomorrow.” Sasuke acknowledged him with a nod and did a quick sweep of the surrounding countryside. Naruto walked over to his sleeping bag, slid in and was soon fast asleep, his easy breathing melting into that of Sakura and Kakashi, and all of them into the natural background of insects, and wind rushing through the grass.

Sasuke’s red eyes swept back over the hills again, dutiful, but just for a moment, he let his eyes drift up to the stars, so much brighter than he’d ever seen them, shining like the welcoming light of home.

Just for a moment, Uchiha Sasuke smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nendo was translated from clay; I’ll let you guess what it means for now. I can’t be sure seeing as I don’t know Japanese, but I think that what Sakura says in the first section translates to “all is unified.” If you do know Japanese, please correct me. I’m hoping to have the mythology and religions in this version of the Naruto world make some sort of sense, so I’d prefer this were right.Also, special shoutout to my friend Nathan who beta-read this chapter and helped make it infinitely better than it might have been.  
> Leave a review, and have a nice day,  
> Scavenger


	8. Complaints and Colorful Dispositions

_“We have unsealed the Gate of Opening within you and given you the strength to withstand its power. Should you live long enough to do this for others, remember that you must always do so before the tenth year of a life, or their power will be too great, and they will surely be torn to pieces.”_

_-The True Way, Tale of the First Sage_

 

Chapter 7

Complaints and Colorful Dispositions

 

            Kiba stretched with a pained growl, rolling his shoulders and trying in vain to get the kinks out of his lower back. His nose was filled with the smell of sweat, heat, and mangled plants. A few rows of the garden over Shino gripped a weed by the base of its stalk, and pulled up with all the force his legs could manage. He didn’t grunt or anything, but his friend could tell he was straining anyway.

            “Asuma-sensei!” The bearded man in question was leaning against a fence, absently gazing at a notched trench knife as he whirled it by its lowest ring. He caught it handily, as natural as if he had simply been flexing his fingers, and not handling a sharpened instrument of death. His face was curious as he turned to his student, removing the cigarette from between his lips.

            “Yeah, Kiba?” The boy glared back, bringing his bare arm up to wipe at his forehead. He had hung his fur jacket on the fence in an attempt to combat the summer heat, but the sweat that had soaked through his shirt and covered his face and arms was evidence of just how well that idea had worked out.

            “We’ve been pulling up weeds in the sun for at least an hour now. Can’t we take a damn break already?” Shino joined Kiba, straightening up and breaking his silence for the first time since they had met up that morning.

            “Though I do not wish to complain, it is true that the direct sunlight is causing us increased difficulty in this task.” Asuma looked down at the boys for a few seconds, his expression unreadable. Finally, he sighed, and started twirling his knife again, his gaze coming to rest on the Inuzuka’s tattooed face.

            “Kiba, what’s the first rule of Team Ten?” The boy bared his teeth, crossing his arms defiantly.

            “This isn’t a stupid question, dammit!” Asuma managed to hide his smirk at the genin’s obvious rage, still spinning his weapon as though it weren’t entirely capable of slashing his throat open.

            “Fine then, what’s the second rule?” Kiba exhaled heavily, his scowl not slipping as he bit out a response.

            “Minimize effort and maximize effectiveness. What’s your stupid point?” The man looked pointedly over at the third Genin of the squad, and Kiba blinked owlishly.

Some small distance away, by the wall of a small house, Ichiro had taken to digging a stubborn plant out with a kunai. Watching him, the idea seemed painfully obvious. Kiba’s eyes flitted between the bespectacled boy and his teacher several times before finally settling on the ground.

“We could still use a break. Come on, Shino, back me u-” He trailed off as he saw the other boy had already kneeled back down, and gotten to work with a kunai. Asuma shrugged, sheathing his knife next to its twin, and rolling a shoulder casually.

“You should have thought of that before you took the hard way. Come on, if you guys finish before 1:00, I’ll treat you to some lunch.” Kiba still grumbled as he pulled out a kunai of his own, but the real anger was gone.

“All the crap jobs they could give me, it’s gardening with a traitor and a complete nerd. I bet Sakura’s team is off saving a princess or something. Lucky bastards.”

 

**IRI**

 

Life had taught Naruto the often-underappreciated art of healthy skepticism when he was just eight. It had all started with a prank (and funnily enough, not one of his). Barely a week had passed since his first meeting with Kurama, and he had managed to snag a sweet bun from a street vendor unnoticed. Some boys – only a year or two older, but a hell of a lot taller – had offered to buy him another one if he could climb to the top of a tree. Not being one to turn down a challenge, and keen to get more sweets, he’d yelled for them to bring it on. A minute later, he had found himself suspended by his ankle from a rope. An ANBU had turned up not a moment later to reprimand the boys and cut Naruto down, but he still remembered the moment of weightless surprise when he realized he had been taken for a chump.

            He had yelled every bad word he knew at them, and stewed in his anger until he finally started planning revenge. The result had been his first real prank; the image of those kids’ shocked, paint-covered faces was still something he remembered when he needed to cheer himself up. But before he had gotten to do all that, he had been brought to the Hokage, and Hiruzen had explained to him why he couldn’t take these things at face value.

            “Naruto, what do you know of the War of Sagely Succession?” He had responded with the truth: he knew the name, and that was about it. Kurama’s presence had spiked like a contained explosion in the back of his head, but he had mostly ignored it.

            “Well, there are two versions of the story. Both begin with the Twins: Ashura and Indra. They were princes of the greatest empire this land has ever known. When their father Hagoromo died, both attempted to claim his throne, and the war that followed very nearly destroyed our world,” The Sandaime explained, taking a calm puff from his pipe and sighing.

            “To simplify greatly, an Ashurist would tell you that Ashura began the war in order to stop the empire from being divided, and that if Indra had simply allowed him to take power, we would still be living in a peaceful world.

“On the other hand, any follower of Indra will tell you just as vehemently that Ashura was simply power-hungry and wished to steal a throne that rightfully belonged to Indra as the firstborn. Both sides claim that their Twin was Hagoromo’s named heir.” Naruto pouted, crossing his arms and curling in on himself in the chair.

            “I really wasn’t looking for a history lesson, Jiji,” he whined. Hiruzen let out another stream of smoke and smiled knowingly.

            “Then I’ll skip to the point. Very little in this world is as it would seem at first glance. To an Ashurist, Indrists are obviously wrong, because they have been raised with conflicting beliefs, and it is convenient for them to believe so. It was convenient for you to believe that those boys meant to buy you sweet buns, and they knew that. They manipulated you by using your desires to convince you they meant no harm. This is something that all shinobi must be able to not only spot others doing, but also do themselves.

            “Very little is as it at first seems. Sometimes other people, like those boys, conceal the truth. Sometimes we conceal it from ourselves, like someone assuming that their Twin was in the right. We must always attempt to see past these deceptions, and discover what lies underneath.”

            He hadn’t understood it at all —not at the time anyway— and Kurama grumbling about people badmouthing his father hadn’t exactly helped him focus. But now, standing here and watching Kakashi collect information from a couple of farmers on their way to market in the capitol, he thought he was starting to.

They had been traveling under henge all day, to practice prolonged chakra usage, and to pass for normal people. Their teacher was talking animatedly with the older couple, whose wagon they had just helped repair “free of charge.” The man seemed a lot looser with local news now that they’d helped refasten his wheels.

            “I tell you, I think some of those shinobi are behind the disappearances. People just up and vanishing overnight, with no trace at all; it’s downright unnatural.” The man’s voice had an accent to it that reminded Naruto vaguely of Iruka, but a lot more pronounced. As Kakashi shifted his weight onto his back foot – his fake face the very picture of surprise – Naruto’s eyes went over the farmer’s tanned skin, scruffy grey beard, and ratty tunic. He and his wife looked… well, normal.

            Maybe a bit too normal. Naruto did his best to keep the suspicion off of his face and concentrated, channeling a bit of Kurama’s chakra.

            “No trace you say? That is strange. You don’t think it could have been anyone from Konoha?” The man leaned in and eyed the landscape for a moment, as though making sure that nobody was in earshot, lowering his voice _–excited green inside suspicious purple_. Behind his back, his wife rolled her eyes _–pale, well-worn yellow like the pages of Jiji’s books_.

“Well, I can’t be sure seeing as I haven’t really seen anything myself, but I’ve heard that it’s only men being taken; the kids and women, they just wake up in empty houses, can’t remember a thing.” He smiled that hesitant way that people always got when they knew they shouldn’t be enjoying something.

“If I were betting, I’d say it was that Uchiha kid snapped a few years back. I heard his family did all sorts of Indrist rituals on him, drove him raving.” The man punctuated his last word with a sweep of his hands, and Kakashi nodded, as though this were the most logical conclusion he could possibly have come to. Naruto couldn’t get a reading from the confused jumble of emotions his teacher was giving off _–too cloudy to really grasp, too chaotic underneath to make sense of_.

Meanwhile, the woman flicked her husband solidly in the temple, eliciting a wince -- _bright red, pale yellow, the both of them, as though this had happened a thousand times, and would happen a thousand more_.

            “Oh, stop filling his mind with fanciful stories. He already has three children to worry about, he doesn’t need your imaginary ninja stealing his sleep as well.” Kakashi shrugged, adjusting his backpack.

            “Well, whoever it is, I’m sure someone is out here trying to catch them. We should get going, though; don’t want to get caught out after nightfall.” The man nodded, rubbing at the side of his head _–purple so close to the edge it might as well have been blue_.

            “Of course, of course. You take care of your cousins, now. Spirit go with you.” His wife repeated the farewell and Kakashi returned it, then without further preamble they went their separate ways, the cart rolling loudly down the road on refastened wheels as Kakashi pulled his book out of his equipment pouch and flicked it open.

            Sasuke – in sharp contrast to their Jounin commander – was unusually easy to read _–anger still burning crimson behind the fog that clouds all of his emotions_. The face he had put on didn’t show it, though. It was a wonder he had managed to keep the nondescript henge going, as riled as he was. “Well, he was… charming.”

            “Yes, well, not everyone can go to the academy, can they? I think it’s safe to say that your older brother isn’t behind this.” Kakashi glanced at Sakura, his free hand stuffed in his pocket as he started off at a deceptively fast walk. “Now, what did we learn from that?”

The pink-haired girl (wearing it light brown at the moment) hummed thoughtfully, scanning the countryside. “They’re only taking men. Maybe they want laborers?”

Kakashi cocked his head, probably frowning behind his mask. As usual, it was hard to tell. “I doubt it. Slavers would have killed the rest of the family. Even incompetent bandits know not to leave witnesses.”

Sasuke’s interjection was as rough as ever. “But these aren’t run of the mill bandits. Targeted amnesia like what he described means a skilled chakra user. At the very least a genjutsu expert, if not something even more dangerous.”

Sakura frowned over at him. Of his three teammates, the civilian-born girl was the easiest for Naruto to read. There was concern, disdain, confusion, cold logic, and a detached sort of anger at the callous way Kakashi had talked about killing innocent people _\--cool sky-blue, dull green-yellow, jumbled sunrise, solid navy blue, and simmering red-black_. Her emotions filled his mind’s eye like one of those stupid modern art paintings, all interwoven but still very clear to the sixth sense he shared with the Nine-Tails. He never really got what the Hokage saw in those things.

_**‘Slavers. Dad told me about them before he died. Scum of the fucking earth.’** _ Naruto nodded in agreement, letting the bright wash of Sakura’s mind fade away.

            “If they’re stealing people from their families, we need to stop them!” Kakashi looked at him, his eye giving nothing away. After a second, he let out a little laugh and turned back to his book, chuckling.

            “Yeah. That would be the general idea.”

 

**IRI**

          

            It was shaping up to be a beautiful evening. The previously brutal sun was setting over the outer wall, casting the treetops in brilliant oranges and yellows. The breeze carried the scent of grass and dirt across the field that made up Training Ground Five. Kurenai probably should have been watching the genin spar. It was an interesting matchup as far as she had seen. The little redhead girl was fast for a fresh recruit, and Chouji’s defensive reflexes were remarkable. Still, her former teammate was for the moment more interesting. Anko’s eyes weren’t on the fight either. They were off to the side, fixed on a small figure curled under a tree. Finally tiring of waiting, Kurenai crossed her arms and decided to just ask.

            “She bothers you, doesn’t she?” The taller woman looked as though she had just swallowed something bitter. She toyed with the collar of her coat.

            “She won’t commit. The other day, I had her spar with Byakuya. She came this fucking close to scoring a hit, would have knocked his arm out for the next hour and won her the fight. Then at the last second she pulled back, like suddenly he was made of fire or some shit. I’ve tried yelling, threatening, bribery. None of it works, and I’m afraid if I go further I’ll…” Kurenai nodded, turning her eyes back to the fight. Kumiko had a slight edge at this point, but she was clearly running out of energy. It had been a long day.

            “You’re afraid that if you push any harder you’ll break her.” It made sense. Anko was an interrogator, mostly trained to leave people gibbering wrecks drained of information. The angry superior act was second nature to her, but nurturing? Their sensei certainly hadn’t taught her any of that. She still had the proof of that burned into her shoulder.

            “The other two are doing fine. They have problems I can hammer out of them, conditioning, weaknesses in their stances and shit. I’m just—” She sighed heavily. “I’m not great with this fragile stuff. Maybe I shouldn’t have taken her.” Kurenai’s eyes didn’t waver from the fight, but her grip tightened on her arms.

            “Nobody knows how to do this stuff the moment they’re handed the job, Anko. And teachers can only do so much for students that don’t want to learn.” She spared a glance, and saw that her words weren’t exactly reassuring her friend. “Look, if it helps any, I can try talking to her. See if I do any better breaking through.” Anko nodded, allowing herself a small smile as Kumiko used Chouji’s momentum to flip him onto the ground, and put him in a submission hold.

            “Go right ahead. Clearly I’m not gonna fuckin’ do it.” She walked over to break up the two Genin, and Kurenai split off toward the tree. Hinata’s face stayed hidden behind her knees, but Kurenai’s trained eyes easily picked out the telltale veins of the Byakugan through her dark blue hair.

            “I take it you saw what we were saying.” The girl nodded, pulling her knees in tighter.

“Anko-sensei believes I lack the mental fortitude to be a kunoichi.” The words were softly spoken, but Kurenai was a jounin. Her hearing outstripped most animals on a bad day. She sighed and took a seat next to Hinata, leaning forward to peer at her face, and putting on what she knew to be a convincing motherly smile.

            “I know Anko is hard on you. I can tell you from personal experience that it’s nothing personal. She’s like that with everybody.”

            “I know. She’s abrasive and vulgar, all the time.” Kurenai eyed Hinata with new interest. That wasn’t the response she had expected. Maybe she would need a slightly different tactic than she’d planned to use.

            “I guess that’s because she doesn’t expect anything different in return,” she said, careful to keep her demeanor offhanded. That got the girl’s attention. Kurenai caught her first glimpse of the young Hyuuga’s eyes and found that they were pale lavender, though just as blank and pupilless as the usual white. Between that and her hair, she didn’t exactly fit the usual description of her clan.

            “What did she do to merit such treatment?” Her voice was very controlled, trying not to show interest: classic Hyuuga demeanor, most likely a defense mechanism. The whole topic was probably hitting a bit close to home.

            _‘Maybe home is what needs to be hit.’_

            “Nothing. It’s what was done to her.” There was a break in the armor, a momentary widening of eyes. It was quickly smoothed over, but still, it was a victory. “The details aren’t really mine to give out, but I can tell you with certainty that Anko isn’t to blame for what happened. No more than you are for your circumstances.”

            That definitely struck a nerve. The mask melted away into something that might have been a glare if it weren’t so damn vulnerable-looking. They sat in silence for a few seconds, Hinata’s mouth opening and closing as she struggled to figure out what to say to that. Kurenai stared evenly back into those broken little eyes until the exchange was finally broken. The girl stood stiffly, looking very pointedly off into the distance and worriedly playing with her fingers. She was big for her age, on closer inspection; she had long legs, broader shoulders than you would expect on a twelve-year-old. It had been hard to make out, with her all curled up.

            “Tha—Thank you, Yuhi-sensei. We should probably rejoin the others.” It was a dismissal, but it was progress. Kurenai nodded and allowed herself a smile.

 

**IRI**

 

                  Sakura’s parents were fairly innocuous people. Her mother’s family had been about as common as blood could get until her parents had died in the crossfire of the Second World War. By processes she had never been inclined to explain, Mebuki had ended up in one of Konoha’s feeder academies near the Lightning Country border, and worked her way into the bureaucracy as a career genin. Eventually she’d been transferred to the village proper, and by chance was assigned to handle Haruno Kizashi’s merchant authorization.

            Sakura’s boisterous father was an extended branch of a decently well-to-do family operating out of the Land of Rice. He worked mostly as an overseer for trade caravans in the southern part of Hi no Kuni. His job meant he was rarely home, but he always returned with tales of the open road that had made Sakura eager to go on journeys of her own. Now that she had managed it, she had come to one inescapable conclusion.

Sakura did not like the traveling. It wasn’t that she had something against walking, or the outdoors, but there had been nothing to see, hear, or do aside from grassy hills, a light breeze, and the endless trudging placement of foot in front of foot for hours after their chance meeting with that elderly couple. The sun had been another problem, but the oncoming evening had sorted that out about an hour ago. Between all of that and her dwindling chakra reserves, the whole ordeal had acquired a dusty film of discomfort and monotony.

Well, maybe not just grass. There had been one or two trees, and they had crossed a structurally suspect bridge over a small stream at one point. Maybe it was just this specific area that was bad to travel in. Jumping to conclusions was never a god idea after all. Considering how deep into her angsting she had sunk, it was a shock when Naruto yelled “LAND HO!”

A long series of threats was on the edge of her tongue until she realized he had spotted their destination, a small town down a steep incline. The group seemed to take this sight as a cue to stop, so for a few moments they stood motionless on the crest of the hill, taking in the village of Ueno.

It was not especially large, a hundred or so red tile roofs and small gardens around a small dirt square, with no particular shape to the whole. Chimneys trailed the smoke of dozens of cook-fires, drifting languidly against the darkening horizon. Beyond the buildings were neatly terraced crops, corn mostly if she remembered correctly. The whole thing was enclosed by a stone wall, with a wooden gate. Or at least it used to. Most of one of the gate’s double doors had been replaced by a barricade of what looked like bags of flour, and a few splintered remains clinging to their hinges.

“Well, I’ll give you three guesses who did that…” Kakashi started off down the hill and his students followed, all previous cheer forgotten. A tense few minutes later, they came to the gate and were greeted with an accusatory demand.

“Name your business!” Kakashi peered at the door, hands in his pockets, as nonchalant as always.

“We’re here to see your liege-lord.” Sakura strained her ears and managed to pick up some angry whispers from beyond the barricade, but no actual words. She shuffled her feet for a few seconds, knees aching for the rest they had been promised when they crested the hill. For a second she thought she saw an eye through a hole in the barricade.

Sakura sighed and turned to gauge the reactions of her teammates. She found Sasuke with a kunai in his hand and Kakashi holding his arm at his side. A loud series of clicks turned her head back to the wall, and suddenly she found herself staring down five crossbows. “Show us some proof!” The actual response barely drew her attention. She was just slightly distracted by having to stare down death for the first time in her life.

Kakashi sighed and took a step back, fumbling in his equipment pouch. Finally, he pulled out a scroll and held it high, turning it in his hand. Seemingly satisfied that they had seen all the details, he spoke in an almost condescendingly enunciated shout.

“Alright! I have here a mission briefing from Sarutobi Hiruzen, Third Hokage of the Village Hidden in the Leaves! It should explain why we’re here and give ample proof that we are who we say we are!” Then he snapped his arm forward and it went sailing over the wall. There was a loud thunk, and then silence for a solid minute before they got an actual response. It came in the form of the gate opening.

The woman on the other side was clad in drab robes, geta sandals, and an iron expression. Her features were of the People, all pale skin, high cheekbones, and straight black hair. She held the partially unrolled scroll in a vice at her side, and two men, who were fingering the handles of a pair of swords as though they expected to be attacked at any moment, flanked her. Evidently their friends on the battlements were little comfort to them.

“Does the governor think us so beneath his notice that he would send children to defend us?” Sakura saw Sasuke’s eyes narrow out of the corner of her eye, and offhandedly noticed that he still hadn’t put his kunai away, but she was more focused on the two bodyguards. As the two groups regarded each other, one of them momentarily locked eyes with her, sending a chill down her spine. There was a scared tension lurking behind his expression. Her mother had once told her that frightened men were the most dangerous, and now that she was standing here weighed down by a travel pack, with a day’s journey behind her and weapons ahead, she could believe it.

“Well, I can’t speak to the governor’s opinion, but yes, they are children, and yes we’ve been sent to help you. I assume you’re in charge here?” She stared down the disguised jounin for a few seconds before sighing and granting them a nod.

“Come inside quickly. We have much to discuss.” Kakashi walked calmly after her, whistling a jaunty tune with his hands stuffed in his pockets. Sakura scurried after him, eager to be on the right side of the wall. But even that didn’t provide much comfort to her; she felt eyes digging at her back all the way to the lord’s house.

 

 


	9. Staring at the Deep End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Given the incendiary nature of the remarks made by one of the third-person narrators in this chapter, I feel I should preface it by saying that my characters' views are not mine. Just so we're clear. I'm already a slow updater. I don't need you guys thinking I'm racist on top of that.

" _One brave samurai stood, unbowed by the threat of his enemies, and cried his challenge proudly. Naruto's kunai took him in the throat, and his surviving comrades elected to stay behind their barricade."_

_-Tales of a Gutsy Ninja Chapter 10, Page 4_

 

Shizuka Sango knew that ninja were insane. It was common knowledge; anyone that removed from general society had to be. But this was pushing what she was willing to believe. Even the greatest prodigies among the nobles weren't sent into battle until they turned sixteen, but three of the people who had walked up to the gates – well, gate now – couldn't be any older than thirteen. One of them was a girl. It was… well, insane.

And they  _were_  ninja. The henges cloaking them in normalcy were proof enough of the profession. "Does the governor think us so beneath his notice that he would send children to defend us?" Good, arrogance. She couldn't let them know she was concerned. She would appear weak, and ninja were treacherous allies at the best of times. Their documentation looked official enough, but that was little guarantee when dealing with chakra-users, especially people who made a living off of their own disregard for things like honor.

"Well, I can't speak to the governor's opinion, but yes, they are children, and yes we've been sent to help you. I assume you're in charge here?" The speaker was a man, using a henge that made him seem taller than his charges, but not by much. He was most likely their commander considering he was older and doing all the talking. He was also a smartass, which meant Sango was probably in for at least a few hours of being talked down to. She didn't have to fake the exasperated sigh.

"Come inside quickly. We have much to discuss."

She led them through the shattered remains of the gate and up the main street, eyes narrowed against the dying rays of the sun. Haru and Kaze stayed at her sides through the square, past the shrine, and all the way to her home. She stepped up to her door, still shattered from the attack, and barely kept covered by a bedsheet. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, turning to face the footsteps behind her with as much strength as she could muster.

"Whoa lady, what happened to your door?" It was one of the boys, looking excited of all things. The girl reached back and smacked him upside the head. "Dammit, Sakura!" Sango couldn't tell what her expression was behind the blank henge, but her stance said she was exhausted. The other boy still hadn't put his knife away.

"If you will follow me inside, I can explain." These were bratty, immature children, bickering quietly even as they followed her through the ruined doorway. Nobu was trying to get them all killed. Had he really hated her father this much?

"I assume this was done by the same people who destroyed your gate?" Sango nodded offhandedly, picking up a candlelighter and sparking the wick with a burst of chakra between her fingers. She set about lighting candles around the outskirts of the room, explaining as she went.

"Yes. They came to Ueno two days ago, barely an hour after we sent word of the disappearances to Nobu-sama. There were three: two swordsmen and a woman wearing a black headband around her waist." She glanced across her guests, scanning for anything anomalous, then went back to lighting. "You may drop your disguises if you wish. My guards can be trusted." The children looked to their leader, and he gave a curt nod. They dispelled their henge, and she blew out the wick. As the smoke cleared, she finally got a good look at them.

They were remarkably colorful for supposed masters of stealth, what with the bright hair and clothing. Even the dark-haired boy with his knife under the table had red and white in his outfit. But it was the leader who truly held her interest. She could have sworn she'd seen his face somewhere. Or, she supposed, his mask. The slanted headband was a dead giveaway, if she could just remember whom it was associated with…

"Could you please describe the headband?" His words filtered through her thoughts and she blinked owlishly.

"Well you should know…" She trailed off as she realized just how mixed up she had gotten for a second, watching the man's visible eyebrow rise slowly up his forehead in the awkward silence.

"You can relax. If we wanted you or anyone else in this village dead, you already would be." Somehow that didn't relax her at all, but she understood and took a deep breath. She took her seat at the head of the table before he could even think of offering it to her; she was already acting disgracefully enough without people showing her hospitality in her own home.

"The plate had a series of wavy lines etched into it. Four originally I think. There was a large cut across the middle, ragged, like someone had taken a knife to it." The girl's eyes widened almost comically.

"That sounds like a Kiri missing-nin!" Her commander touched her shoulder, and she quieted down. He brought his hand up over his own headband then pulled it away.

"Is this more or less what you saw?" Sango stared for a second. The lines weren't curved quite the same, and the cut was too jagged, but…

"Yes." She croaked out, finally averting her eyes. She wasn't putting up a very good stoic leader facade. Her father would have been disappointed.

"Tell us what happened, as best you can."

**IRI**

A thin drizzle of oil fell into the pan and set it sizzling. Ko loved that sound. It filled him with knowledge that he was doing something good, worthwhile. He recapped the bottle and stirred the sauce for a moment, trying to make sure nothing spent too much time on the bottom. The lock clicked, and he turned to the door. His charge stood there, dirty from training, but more or less how he'd left her that morning.

"Hinata-sama, dinner should be ready very soon. How was your day?" As ever, the girl did not meet his eyes.

"It was fine, Ko-san. I will be in my room." She did her best not to seem in a hurry and almost succeeded. Her guardian refrained from commenting, just like he had almost every day since they'd been moved in. Instead, he turned back to his pan and peered at the bubbling mixture, assessing its readiness. He chewed his tongue in irritation for a second; the onions might have gone in just a bit too early.

"Ah, Ko-san?" He nearly upended the pan onto himself. Thankfully, for all that he was a disgrace, he was also a highly trained warrior, so he caught up to his instincts and steadied his hand, turning to his charge. She was standing in her doorframe, looking down the hall as though the bathroom door were very interesting.

"Yes, Hinata-sama?" She considered her words, fidgeting in that curious way with her index fingers. The elders had hated that little tick, but somehow it had never been beaten out.

"I was wondering what you thought of… Well, I mean, what do you know of, ah, Anko-sensei?" Ko blinked for a few moments trying to gather his thoughts. That Hinata was initiating a conversation was strange enough, but she had expressed no interest whatsoever in her sensei before. If she had been any other person he might have called it disdain, but this was Hinata. He bought a few more seconds by turning back to his pan and stirring. It actually looked more or less done, but half a minute more couldn't hurt.

"Mitarashi-san is a civilian-born tokubetsu jounin, working mostly in the Intelligence Division. She has a preference for dango and keeps mostly to herself. What I have heard beyond that is hearsay." Hinata kept fidgeting.

"Yes, but, ah… Well, what were the rumors?" Ko grabbed a spoon, took a sip of the sauce and nodded. It was ready. He took it from the stovetop and put out the flame. It was amazing what luxuries people outside the compound had, and what they did not. Tools as complex as a gas stove would never be allowed in a normal Hyuuga household, but what they did have was infinitely better quality. Ko shook religious dilemmas from his mind and focused on the conversation. His mother had always said he was scatterbrained.

"Well, she was a student of Orochimaru. They consider her untrustworthy because of that. Some say that he left a curse on her that brings misfortune to those around her." He poured the sauce into two small bowls and plated up the rice and vegetables he had steamed earlier. Finally, he placed the bowls as well, and carried the platters over to the small table in the corner.

"I… I see." Hinata joined quietly, sitting and offering a halfhearted prayer to the Sages that Ko did not mimic before picking up her chopsticks and beginning to eat.

"Hinata, there are people far more knowledgeable on this subject than I am. Why not ask them?" She stopped with a piece of carrot halfway to her mouth, only to keep going, and chew for what felt like a very long time. Finally, she swallowed.

"I, ah, well, you were the most available source of information." She didn't seem very keen to explain herself further. Ko dropped it and they returned to their usual silence.

**IRI**

Kakashi frowned behind his mask and stared at the ceiling of the guest quarters, contemplating the mountain of shit he and his students had been led into. All indications were that the disappeared men had been caught up in some plot by the Hidden Mist Liberation Army, working with ronin from the Blue Wolf mercenary company if the scared little girl this place had for a liege lord could be trusted.

And that was what Sango was; a scared little girl filling in for a father who'd been demoted to the boonies for some imagined slight against the regional governor, and then killed when he refused to give up some other old man's location. This was not the sort of complexity he had signed up for. They were walking into A-rank danger at least, but considering the lead their quarry already had on them, and the potential danger to Hi no Kuni and by extension Konoha, he couldn't afford the time it would take to send a message back to the village and get a proper squad onto the matter.

Which meant he could either take a bunch of half-trained genin into an active combat situation against powerful chakra users, or do the same by himself and hope they could handle some time in Ueno on their own.

It wasn't even a question, really.

**IRI**

"YOU'RE LEAVING US HERE?" Naruto winced and rubbed at his ear for a second, trying to get the scream out. He didn't need Kurama to tell him how angry Sakura was; it was a miracle she hadn't tried to punch Kakashi's face in.

"The mission parameters have changed. They have a head start on us that I'm going to have to make up, which will be difficult with you slowing me down. Even if they didn't, you aren't ready for this sort of enemy." He folded his arms and used all his impressive height to tower over her. She opened her mouth, but he beat her to it. "And most importantly, I'm leaving you behind because that is what I think is best, and I am your commander, so you are going to stay put."

The pink-haired girl tried to maintain a glare, but Kakashi's eye was steady, and before long she backed down.

"Anyway, I expect all three of you to keep training while I'm gone. I set up several targets in Shizuka-san's garden. You don't go to sleep until you hit a hundred bulls eyes on top of the usual conditioning." Sasuke finally reacted, turning on his heel with a derisive "Hn," and stalking away without a word.

Naruto watched him go for a second, torn about who he should be angry at, until he finally settled for glaring at his teacher.

"You're being stupid. If these guys are really dangerous, then you need backup." Kakashi looked down at him, and Naruto fought down new anger at how stubborn every godsdamn person he knew just  _had_  to be. It didn't help any when the man ruffled his hair and gave him that fake little eye-smile. Naruto wasn't pouting. Really, he wasn't.

"Hey, if it helps any, I've got a job for you. I need you to make sure Sasuke and Sakura don't burn the village down trying to kill each other." Naruto's glare did not waver. Kakashi dropped the smile.

"Not gonna work, huh? Look, kid, have some faith in your sensei. I've gone into worse situations than this, and I'll still be doing it when the lot of you are retired. Now go, I actually do need you to watch them." Naruto sighed, but deigned to give his sensei a hug before he ran off.

Kakashi watched his sensei's child go, reminding himself all the while that this was for their own good. "They seem like good students." He turned to Sango and sighed.

"They are. Better than I deserve at any rate. While you're here I could use anything that might have my quarry's scent on it." She frowned, looking away.

"Well, one of my men managed to scratch the woman with a crossbow bolt. It might still be embedded in the wall." Kakashi inclined his head.

"That should work nicely." They walked to the outskirts of the village, and found it wedged between two stones in the wall. Kakashi grasped it and after a second to work it free with his chakra, pulled it out and sniffed it experimentally. There was a bit of a scent, but it was faint. He'd need a better nose for this one.

"Genji, the man who shot that bolt, he died not five seconds later. I'd appreciate if you made his death worth something." Kakashi looked at her sideways, but in the end decided he didn't need to respond to that. Unlike his team, her mental wellbeing wasn't his business. Instead, he made a hand-sign and touched the ground open-palmed. Jutsu-shiki shot across the dusty grass in a telltale spiderweb, and when the smoke cleared, a dog had burst into existence. He was small and brown, wearing a jacket and a headband emblazoned with three claw marks. Kakashi remembered the day he'd earned them, and smirked behind his mask.

"I need your nose." The dog huffed angrily and sat, bringing a paw up to scratch at one of his floppy ears.

"Seems like that's all you ever need me for these days, Kakashi. What, no time for your old friend Pakkun?" He shook his head and got to his feet. "Well, go on, give me the scent." Kakashi knelt and gave his friend a few seconds to catch the scent.

"Hm. I'm getting a kunoichi, wind-natured, strong control, decent potency, maybe second gate standing, in her mid-twenties?" He looked to his summoner for confirmation and got a nod. "Alright, then, let's go."

Kakashi turned to Sango and gave her a nod. "Take care, Shizuka-san." And with that, he and Pakkun ran over the wall and out of Ueno, leaving her to wonder how the hell a dog had been talking.

**IRI**

Naruto stomped down Ueno's main road, kicking pebbles as he went. This C-rank was not going at all how he'd envisioned it. They should have been running through the wilderness, tracking down villains and bringing them to justice, proving themselves as ninja. Instead, their sensei had left them behind for their own safety like a bunch of kids. ' **You are a kid.'**

Naruto scowled up at his own forehead, eliciting a few odd looks from passing villagers. ' _No, I'm not! I'm a Konoha shinobi, that's what the headband means.'_

Kurama chuckled. ' **Just because you wrapped something around your head doesn't make you an adult, dumbass. Now, what are we going to do about Kakashi?'**  

Naruto blew out a heavy sigh. ' _Hell if I know.'_ Kurama snorted but didn't comment. Human command hierarchies perplexed him. The idea of bowing down to someone weaker than you was idiotic.

Naruto crossed the threshold of the lord's house and strolled through the halls, only to hear words filtering in from outside. "You're flicking your wrist too much."

"Did I ask for your input?" Naruto sighed. He hadn't even gotten there yet and they were already fighting. He wrapped his fingers around the door and shoved it open a lot harder than he needed to. The loud crack of wood striking wood startled them into silence.

"Can't you two go five seconds without getting into some stupid argument?" Sakura stared at him like he'd grown an extra head.

Sasuke snorted and threw a brace of kunai. "What's up your ass?"

Naruto walked to a bench and sat down heavily, glaring at the sky. "We're being treated like little kids, and Sensei's running off alone to fight people who smash down gates for shits and giggles. What  _isn't_  up my ass?"

Sasuke stared at him for a few seconds and cracked a small smirk. "You maybe want to rephrase that?"

"Screw you, you know what I meant!"

Sakura glared at him, practically oozing intellectual superiority and repressed anger. "So what, you want us to go running off into the wilderness after someone twice as fast as us toward people who are definitely stronger than us? Best case scenario, we manage to make it back here in one piece, whereupon we'll have to go rogue or be taken in for disobeying a direct order." She flicked the weapon at her target and hit off center.

"I'm telling you, you just have to dial back on the wrist-"

"No, I don't! Why do you have to be critical of every godsdamned thing I do?" Sakura took a deep breath and pulled out another knife, staring at the sunlight on the blade so she wouldn't have to look at her teammates "It just feels wrong. Standing around here while he's off in danger."

Sasuke snorted. "Why? It's not like he lifts a finger when we're on missions."

Sakura frowned, putting away her kunai. "But he's always there. He watches us and he tells us how to get better, and… Spirit, I don't know, it just doesn't feel right." She sat down heavily on the lip of the garden's lower level, staring at the dirt between her sandals. Naruto thought absently for a second. There had to be something more productive they could do while Kakashi was fighting mercenaries.

' **Weren't they after some old guy on his way to Konoha?'** Naruto blinked. Somehow he'd completely forgotten that detail.

"Hey, guys, where did mayor lady say that bridge guy was staying? Tozubo?"

"Tazuna."

"Right, thanks Sasuke. Anyway, where?"

Sakura eyed him warily. "What are you planning?"

Naruto smiled like a predator in front of a small, trapped rodent. "Konoha Shinobi Rule 24: Information is the path to kickassery. I say we interrogate him, see what he can tell us about why people were after him in the first place."

She raised an eyebrow, but smiled. "Well, putting aside how horribly you just mangled Rule 29, that's actually not a bad idea."

Sasuke shrugged, hit a bullseye, put his hands in his pockets, and started for the door. The other two followed eagerly.

**IRI**

Waraji threw another berry into his mouth and narrowed his eye against the glare of the sun. The heat was almost a physical weight on his bare shoulders, beating down with all the ferocity of his old instructor. There wasn't a single breeze to be found on the stale air. Little dust clouds bloomed up with every step he took. Zouri took another loud drink from his water-skin, and Waraji found himself licking his lips. The sooner they got back, the better.

They'd been doubling back to Ueno for a day now, all because the bitch Zabuza had insisted on sending had screwed up and wanted an opportunity to play hero. Not that he cared if she got herself killed just because she was wet for teacher; thinning the ranks of the enemy was always a good plan. He just hoped the noble reject the Company had dropped on him wasn't going the same way.

It figured they were both of the People. That official's daughter too. Honestly, you make someone pale and give them squinty eyes, and they act like a Sage come back to life to check everyone's groveling skills. Fuckers.

He was bored enough at this point that he might have turned to Zouri for a bit of sport. The kid had four good limbs, two good eyes, and all his fingers and toes. Not like he couldn't afford to lose something to alleviate the drudgery. After all, Waraji was supposed to be teaching him.

But of course, Waraji was a professional, so he didn't do that, just like he hadn't the last four times he'd thought about it. His fingers played over the handle of his sword. Gods it would have felt amazing to cut something right then. This trip hadn't been nearly as exciting as he had hoped. Sure it had been fun to bust down that gate, but the damn Kiri woman had given him shit about it for the next half a day of cross-country trudging. She hadn't let him kill a single one of the nameless country fucks they had come across all this time off of some bleeding heart crap about not causing "unnecessary deaths". Like she was letting the men live.

Then again, that was the interesting bit in all this. Some no-name bridge-builder from a half-dead country was small-time compared to what they'd been running around the Land of Fire with. Waraji didn't care much for the business side of the Blue Wolves, but even he could see what it meant. The hit and run stalemate of the Mist Civil War was about to tip, and there was good money in that sort of bloodshed.

Finally, they crested the final hill and Waraji was greeted by the stone walls of Ueno, less than a mile away. His cracked lips curled into a smile, his chakra flaring, driving the heat away. Time to have some fun.

**IRI**

Tazuna's hiding place was fairly simple: a small house, off to the side, and innocuous enough to be overlooked. When they'd walked in Sakura had been slightly annoyed to see that his bed looked much more comfortable than her own at the liege lord's house. Naruto had been too excited to notice and as usual Sasuke didn't care. Several minutes of explanation and righteous anger had led them to a very confused blond and a bemused, nervous bridge-builder. "So… This Gatou Guy. He's the Daimyou now?"

Tazuna shook his head. "No, not technically, but he might as well be. Our country is small, and isolated. We haven't had any sort of real military since the old Hidden Village closed down. There's no way we can fight back on our own." He looked them over, fingering his flask, but leaving it unopened.

"So that's why you were headed to Konoha. You figured you could get a few chuunin together and clear him out." The old man regarded Sakura oddly.

"A chunin is some kind of ninja?" She nodded. "Then yes."

Sakura opened and closed her mouth once or twice trying to figure out how to respond to that before Sasuke did it for her.

"A military action against nukenins and samurai on foreign soil is going to cost you a small fortune upfront, which you don't have I'm guessing." The man opened his mouth to respond, but Sasuke pushed on, not breaking eye contact. "An assassination would cost a lot less, but that would leave a hungry army sitting around with nobody to pay them." He didn't have to point out how that would go; even Naruto could figure it out. It would be a bloodbath, pillaging mercenaries against desperate peasants. Best case, someone took charge quickly and they were left right back where they started. Tazuna looked on, his mouth shut tight.

"What I think my teammate is saying," Sakura picked up, "is that Konoha can only do so much in a situation like this." She said it robotically, probably quoting from something. Her eyes were narrowed in thought. "But if the people we've been chasing were after you, why would they be abducting farmers? And where have they been keeping them? Gatou's got a whole island nation's worth of free labour if he wants it, so why pick a fight with us?"

"I knew it! I knew something was off!" Sakura cuffed Naruto lightly upside the head. "Dammit, stop hitting me!"

Sasuke pushed off from the wall. "So we're still stuck here. If those samurai have a target, they'll be back soon enough."

Sakura nodded. "We should warn the guard-" A loud crack split the air, and everyone turned to the window. Out toward the wall, a plume of dust was rising. Naruto reacted for the lot of them.

"Shit."

Then a chunk of rock smashed through the roof and caved Tazuna's head in.


	10. Bleeding Off the Edge

_“Never underestimate the transformative qualities of an extreme negative experience.”_

_-Yamanaka Toji, on the evolution of mindscapes_

  

Mei looked out at the open hills and frowned. There was no dead body, no sign of a struggle. The sun was creeping ever higher in the sky, and here she was, confused, but fairly certain her clone trap had worked. She would have felt a violent death if it hadn’t, but it had dispelled of its own volition. Unless the enemy had some sort of ridiculously fast-acting hypnosis technique…

There should have been a dead body waiting here, but there wasn’t. In a line of work with so many ways to avoid death, it was always best to assume the enemy was still alive until they were cooling in front of you, so until she could verify it, her enemy was still alive. She made a show of stopping to wipe her forehead. She would be best served if they underestimated her.

“You should work on your acting.” There was something cold at her throat. She winced and felt it pierce her skin ever so slightly. Warm blood dripped lazily down her vulnerable neck. “I mean seriously, a puddle? It hasn’t rained out here in days.” She slowly, steadily began bringing her right hand into the correct seals for a simple genjutsu, only to feel something hard dig into her lower back, followed by a burning sensation. Her arms went limp. “Ah ah, none of that. Now tell me where the samurai are, before my arm gets tired and I slip through your windpipe.”

Mei’s brain was locked in a panicked loop, jumping from moment to moment, berating itself for being so stupid. First she let some powerless civvie get the drop on her, and then she had the gall to think she could lead the team sent after them. Zabuza’s approval felt paltry reward for the fact that she was almost definitely going to die here.

“My name is Mei.”

"Oh really? Well, I’m not boiling to death right now, so I’m going to assume you’re not who I’m thinking of. Still, not what I asked.” Another sharp blow to her torso, this time uncomfortably close to her kidneys. She let out a cry of pain and barely kept herself still enough to avoid a tracheotomy. “The samurai. Now.”

“They’re not here!” Was something on her face bleeding? “We knew trackers could use the blood on the bolt. I was supposed to lure them away and kill them.” No, just tears. Pathetic. There was a tense moment. She heard a deep breath, and a sigh.

Then there was a hand over her face. Her vision made a sharp left turn, and she died with a loud snap.

**IRI**

 

He couldn’t stop seeing it. Tazuna’s head cracking, falling into itself, then blood and grey stuff flying everywhere. It was like breaking an egg, only more complicated. Someone was shouting. Couldn’t they see they had to put him back together again? He could feel something warm on his face.

 **‘WAKE UP, DUMBASS!’** He blinked, and everything came flooding back. People were screaming outside. The sun was streaming in through a hole in the ceiling.

Tazuna was dead, and his killers were here, ready to hurt more people, while he sat around gawking like an idiot.

“Naruto!” Sakura was shaking him. He had to go stop the samurai from hurting people. He pushed himself to his feet on barely steadied hands. He was so _weak_.

 **‘Naruto, you're not weak, you’re in shock. Now, pull yourself together.’** Right. He had to get moving. People were in trouble; innocent people who had helped him. He didn’t have time to be weak.

 

**IRI**

 

This was an active combat situation. Sakura could remember every little regulation and tactic for this exact moment like the book was open in front of her, so she didn’t have to dig too far to find the appropriate checklist.

1: Evaluate your resources. Naruto was picking himself off the ground, coming out of whatever stupor he’d been in before, and Sasuke was already on the roof, peering into the distance. They had almost no equipment and detouring to the center of the village to get it would waste time they didn’t have. They’d have to make due.

2: Evaluate the terrain. The village could have provided a lot of places to hide and attack from, but there were civilians everywhere, and considering they had gotten through the wall, the enemy wouldn’t have much trouble with old houses. Not great on that front either.

3: Evaluate your enemies. They were up against samurai. Based on the destruction they’d just caused and Sango’s testimony, they were powerful chakra users, so direct confrontation was not a good idea. Ranged attacks and traps were their best bets, but considering how limited their arsenal was, their chances of success were low.

They could all very easily die here, just like Tazuna had a moment ago. She might never see her father smile again, never kill another of her mother’s plants, never read her brother another bedtime story.

She’d never felt more alive. “Uchiha! What do you see?”

Sasuke dropped back down through the hole, landing with an impact-diffusing roll. “Two enemies, busted in from the North. Sango’s moving to intercept.”

Sakura cursed. The situation was already going to be complicated what with the civilians, now they were going to have a noble in the middle of everything making a scene. She turned her attention to Naruto, who was staring out the window at the hole in the wall. Seemingly oblivious to the blood on his face. She reached out to touch his shoulder, but as her fingers brushed his jacket, he whirled on her, his glowing eyes wide with barely restrained panic. Before she could even get a word in, he shot through the roof and disappeared across the rooftops.

“We should follow him,” Sasuke said, “He’ll get himself killed if he rushes in alone.” Sakura groaned, doing her best to relax her jaw. Tensing up was a bad idea, no matter how on edge she was. He shot out into the sun, and she followed, into her first real battle.

 

**IRI**

 

The samurai were already halfway to the square by the time Sango arrived. She had no illusions as to her chances against them. She was a noble: she could pick out some standard illusions, but beyond that and the spark-making trick her father had taught her, the opened Gate behind her navel was little more than a status symbol. Now, standing in front of two armed warriors, she was more aware of that fact than ever.

Haru and Kaze flanked her protectively, but they were trembling almost as much as she was. A pressure emanated from the intruders that she had hoped never to feel again. They were better than her, some treacherous voice from the depths of her instincts whispered. She needed to run. Creatures like this were dangerous.

“Hello again, hime.” The larger one spoke with the Old Tongue accent of a Tetsu no Kuni native. He was missing an eye, teeth bared like a blood-mad hound. Something told her this was the more powerful of the two. Just as before, the younger mercenary stayed silent, looking off to the side as though everything made him supremely uncomfortable. “We are here for the old man.” He chuckled to himself. “Not yours obviously. If you could take us to him now, it would be appreciated.”

Haru growled something indistinct, but obviously uncomplimentary, and drew his sword. He might have run in if Sango hadn’t stopped him. “You can’t fight them. You’ll die.”

“Sango, your father-”

“Is dead. Would you like to join him?” She didn’t turn to meet his eyes, but as he eased back off her arm, she knew she had reached him.

“Oh, how precious. Such a hotheaded bodyguard must be taxing for you to deal with.” His arm blurred, and Haru’s head parted from his shoulders. The tall samurai held his sword ahead of himself, as though he’d just executed a thrust. Sango watched, disbelieving as the decapitated corpse of her bodyguard fell to the dusty ground. “Tell me where Tazuna is or my apprentice practices on the other one.”

A flash of yellow was all the warning they received. One moment the tall one was standing there with a smirk on his face, the next he was whirling as something bright gold collided with his student, hard enough to kick up dust and send him flying into the nearest house. Naruto skidded awkwardly out of the dust cloud, breathing ragged as he barely righted himself. His enemy blinked, taking in every strange detail of this new challenger: the grey and orange jacket, the bright blond hair, the round face marred by abject rage and drying blood.

He grinned, and moved.

 

**IRI**

 

Naruto might well have died right then if some instinct hadn’t told him to dodge. He was barely out of the way when the invisible whatever-it-was tore past him and punched a hole in another house. In the fraction of a second he had to think, he decided that an overpowered shunshin had worked pretty well on the other guy. He flooded his body with Kurama’s chakra, crouched, and shot forward, just slightly off target, coming to a halt and scrambling to change direction in time to hit him in the back.

But already the man was turning to meet him, and instead of attacking he ended up barely avoiding a slash that would have taken his head off. Naruto jumped back and pulled his only two kunai out.

Footfalls behind him. He turned and found the younger samurai he’d hit on his way, covered with cuts and bruises, but more importantly, winding up for a slash that would cleave him in two. For the second time in less than a minute he was about to die.

This time he was saved by a kunai out of nowhere. The knife embedded itself in the meat of the samurai’s arm, sending him reeling back with a loud cry of pain. Sakura followed it, attacking her enemy with a sword. “I’ve got him, focus on the big guy!”

A series of loud impacts and a blast of heat reminded Naruto that there was in fact a very dangerous mercenary right behind him, easily backpedaling away from the small fireballs Sasuke had thrown at him. He was laughing. Naruto gripped his knives tighter and forced his legs to move.

 

**IRI**

 

Sakura was out of her depth. This was not unusual, but this time, as she charged forward and met steel with steel, she was very aware she might die because of it.

She was up against a samurai, ostensibly a master swordsman. Generally they fought by channeling their chakra into their blades to increase durability and sharpness. Sakura could feel it as their swords met; a powerful weight on her soul as her energy met his.

Every academy graduate knew some kenjutsu. Swords were among the most widespread of weapons, and shinobi prided themselves on utility, so they had no stigma against “battlefield acquisition.” Still, it wasn’t exactly core curriculum; the only type covered outside of specialty classes was the standard katana. She would have been better off barehanded than trying to swing around a tachi cavalry sword, or spirit forbid an old-style chokuto.

But even with the right weapon she was being pushed back. Her opponent had an advantage in size, experience, and chakra potency, all of which she felt as he hammered a powerful downward slash into her blade and sent her skidding backward. If it weren’t for one of his arms being out of commission, she’d probably be dead already.

She could feel the first insidious tendrils of panic as she barely deflected a quick thrust away from her neck, feeling the terrible force of the impact all along her arms. She could barely keep herself focused enough to step away from the kick he aimed at her knees, and the tip of his blade scored a deep cut on her forearm when it came back around. All she could consciously think was that she was going to be killed by some idiot with eyelid tattoos, and it was all Naruto’s fault.

The idiot stabbed at her chest, and she turned it aside, forcing her mind to focus. She’d created an opening in his guard; his torso was wide open. She lunged forward, putting her body weight behind a stab right to his heart.

 

**IRI**

 

Sasuke shot forward, throwing a shuriken to distract the enemy’s attention as Naruto shot around from the other side to pincer him. The man flicked the projectile out of the air contemptuously, blocked Naruto’s first slash, and caught his follow-up stab by the wrist. There was a loud crunch, and with a yelp Naruto fell to his knees, his fracturing bones still in the smiling lunatic’s grip as he dropped his weapons.

Sasuke pulled another two shuriken, one for the throat, the other for the arm holding Naruto. The man let go, moving aside to avoid them, and Sasuke met him blade to blade, cursing his weak body as he pushed as much chakra into his kunai as it could handle. Direct hand-to-hand was definitely a losing proposition.

His sharingan showed him a punch, but he was much too slow to dodge it completely. Instead he rolled with it, spinning away and coming up in a crouch just in time to block the heavy downward slash that would have opened him from shoulder to hip. He grunted with the effort, bracing his hand with the other. He could see it a moment ahead: mundane metal shattering under the weight of two dueling chakras. He was dead if he stayed where he was.

So he dropped his weapon and rolled aside, feeling the blade bite into the flesh of his arm as he evaded it, and doing his best to ignore the pain. He could see so clearly. In a second the man would be recovered. Sasuke leapt forward, putting his full body weight and the force of a chakra-assisted leap into a heavy punch right to his opponent’s unprotected guts. It was like hitting a brick wall. Even with heavy reinforcement, he could feel his fingers crunching. The man went staggering back, wheezing as he tried to recover his breath. “Fucking... Red-eye... Bitch.” Before he could recover, Naruto leapt from behind him, wrapping blazing yellow arms around his head and neck and letting out a screeching cry of pain and primal rage.

It was like a small bomb going off. Naruto was thrown back, skidding through the dirt as the samurai reeled away, clutching his face with his free hand and waving his sword with the other as if to ward off further attacks. Sasuke scrambled for the kunai he’d abandoned. It was perilously close to breaking, but he couldn’t do a large enough fire jutsu without both hands , so it was the only weapon he had left, and taijutsu was worse than useless if they wanted to end this quickly.

“Fucking cunt-face little shits!” Sasuke’s perfect eyes looked up from the ground and etched a nightmare into his memory. The man’s face was horribly burnt, and what was left of his nose hung awkwardly by a few strands of strand of flesh and skin, but his eye was completely intact. The other was a lidless pit. His mouth was pulled into a rictus of rage and agony. “I’m gonna turn you into a red fucking stain!”

Eight shuriken rained down on him from the side, and he went stumbling back, barely protecting his vitals. A split second later, Kakashi was behind him, kunai plunging toward his liver. He turned it aside by the barest inch, but it was already too late. There was a sound like a flock of birds, and Kakashi’s other hand went right through the samurai’s chest in a flash of bright blue. The body twitched for a second before it was unceremoniously dumped on the ground. Sasuke couldn’t quite put his finger on that sound. Something about it was so strangely familiar...

“Report!” Sasuke blinked. Right. He was on a team. He was thirteen, and a Konoha shinobi. For a second he’d been somewhere else entirely. “Sasuke!”

“Right, right, we-” He was interrupted by Naruto’s voice, anguished like he hadn’t heard before.

“SAKURA!”

 

**IRI**

 

This was all his fault. He’d rushed in like an idiot and now Sakura was bleeding out on the ground in some middle-of-nowhere village, and the old guy who just wanted to help his country was dead, and it was _all his fault_. The guilt was almost enough to make him forget that the bones in his left arm were basically crushed below the elbow.

The major cut was on her side, just below her ribcage. He had his jacket pressed to it to staunch the bleeding, but it barely seemed to be helping at all, partly because he only had one hand to use and partly because there was just _too much blood_.

“I’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorry…” His hand was red, the ground was red, everything was red. Someone was talking over his shoulder.

“You don’t know any medical jutsu?”

“Not good enough for this. I could bandage her up, but the wound’s too deep. She’d be dead in a few hours.” He didn’t need to see the panicked orange in Kakashi and Sasuke. It was in the air, a smell like copper, a drumbeat echoing in his ears. He could see the colors jumping back and forth in Sakura, slowing down as she moaned in pain, grasping at the dirt.

“Naruto. Naruto!” Sasuke forced him to turn and look him in his blood-red eyes. “Naruto, you’re the only person here who can heal.” He blinked. That was crazy. He couldn’t do that, not to a person.

“But... the pigeon… I might just make it worse!”

“Fuck the pigeon! If you don’t try she dies!” He turned back to the wound, terror and hope warring for supremacy in his mind. It had been years since he’d even tried healing something else. Maybe…

 _‘Do you think we can do it?’_ He could feel Kurama shifting uneasily.

**‘Honestly? No, but Sasuke’s right. We can’t exactly make it worse, can we?’**

“Right.” He did his best to swallow the doubts that were clogging his windpipe and thought, hard. He thought about how the Kurama’s chakra felt different when he was healing himself: the slight tickling that he could feel in his left arm at that very moment. The idea came to him abruptly. It was crazy. Then again, the whole situation was insane to begin with. He forced a shaky smile onto his face that was as much gritted teeth as it was bedside manner. He could do this.

He pulled his jacket away and took hold of his injured arm, barely suppressing a scream as bone shards ground against each other. He thought about good things. Sparring with his teammates, hot ramen from Ichiraku’s, the stars from the top of the Hokage monument. As quickly as he dared, he moved the arm on top of Sakura’s wound, and pushed more of Kurama’s chakra into it, feeling flesh begin to knit back together as fire danced across it.

Then, he took that chakra, ever so slightly different from how it normally would have felt, and shoved down. Sakura screamed.

 

**This chapter is much shorter than normal, and I’m sorry for that. There just wasn’t anywhere else to end it without murdering the pacing, or doubling the length.**

**I’ve gotten some reviews asking about the reincarnation of Ashura and Indra, and how that plays into the religious framework I’ve been setting up. In all honesty, I don’t know if I’ll even use that story thread. I felt it was terribly executed in canon, but the idea isn’t without merit. I’ve considered it once or twice, but if I do use it, you can be sure it will be very different from what we saw originally.**

**On that topic, I’d like to reiterate that this story is not an alternate timeline, it’s an entirely separate version of the Narutoverse. Canon is a suggestion as far as Regressed is concerned. If something didn’t make sense, be it lore, mechanics, or any other aspect of the original story, it will be modified, expanded on, or cut out entirely. A few other (in my opinion better-executed) takes on this sort of fanfic are Shinobi: Team 7 by Gallyrat, Naruto: Fortune Favors the Fox by Chrisrawr, and Sagacity Unbroken: Shadows of the Green Sky by Endfall, so if you like this story, I’d definitely recommend you check those out too.**

 

**Thanks for reading!**

**Scavenger**


End file.
